


Outside In

by lotus0kid



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arranged Marriage, F/M, Major Illness, Minor Belle/Red Riding Hood | Ruby, Spinner Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold, sick parent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 07:38:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 39,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13654479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotus0kid/pseuds/lotus0kid
Summary: Sequel toDownside Up.  Years after the fateful autumn festival, Collioure has survived both an ogre invasion and a plague, but is on its last legs.  Belle must marry rich to save her village.  An offer comes from a mysterious merchant from the Crescent Islands.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Happy sixth Rumbelle anniversary! This is just a bit of a teaser to celebrate the day. I'm not sure when I'll be posting the rest- writing has been slow-going so far and I don't know if/when/how that will change. So, um, enjoy this bit, and sit tight for more!

_“The festival is over,” he says.  Then he bows.  “Farewell, my lady.”_

_When he straightens, he watches Belle construct a mask over her sorrow.  She waves a hand and says, “So long, Rumpel.”_

_Then she turns and walks away._

\---

 **THREE YEARS LATER**  

The Enzo, she can’t possibly leave the Enzo.  Belle grabs the book off the shelf and drops it in the growing pile held safe in her hoisted up skirt.  The Bastian follows, then the Marcel.  The Sinclair almost topples out but Belle grabs it in time.  Then she stands with the Hugo in hand.  It’s easily the most boring book in the library, but it could have some precious insights she can’t remember.  It must be saved too.  But she’s been at this all day, and darkness has fallen with so many shelves left to check.

“Lady Belle!”

She spins around with a relieved smile to see Sir Gaston stomping down the row toward her, flaming torch in hand.  “Oh, good,” she says, “Here, take these.”

She scoops another armful of books off the shelf and holds it out to him.  He spares them a glance before saying, “Ogres have breached the line.  You have to evacuate now.  Leave the damned books.”

Belle stares at him in outrage, “What are you saying?  We can’t leave the books.  This library is our- our history, our culture.  What are we without it?!”

“Alive!”

A crash shakes the library and a horrible bellow fills the air outside.  There is a scent of smoke that isn’t coming from the torch.  Gaston grabs Belle’s arm and hauls her down the row, books spilling from her skirt as they go.  “Wait, wait, please!” she begs, struggling to hang on to one volume, grab one more off the shelf.  Gaston doesn’t pause.

A thought has Belle wrenching free, grabbing the torch, and sprinting down a certain row.  There is one book she cannot sacrifice to this war.  The rarest book in the collection, unique from all the others, acquired during a trading expedition that went to the farthest ends of the world.  Belle can’t even read its vertical calligraphy, but she always meant to translate it.  If she lets it be destroyed without ever discovering what knowledge it contained, she’ll never forgive herself.

Gaston is shouting and lumbering after her, but she keeps going while muttering, “Just one.  I just need one.”

The sounds of splintering wood, crunching stone, and ogre roars are getting closer, and Belle is instinctively flinching and ducking by the time she snatches the book off its shelf.  She spins around to face Gaston, only to watch as the wall beside him cracks and a massive fist punches through.

Everything goes black.

And elsewhere, across miles of ocean, Rumpelstiltskin starts awake in his bed, heart pounding with sick fear.  What on Earth was he dreaming about?  In the dark, he smiles bitterly.  Belle.  It can only be Belle.  He grabs his old walking staff kept by the bed, scrubs a hand through his cropped hair, and climbs to his feet.  After a quick check to see that Bae is sound asleep, Rumpelstiltskin wanders to the narrow balcony that is the sole luxury of their living quarters above their fabric and thread shop.

He takes in a deep draft of night air, and forces himself to look north.  Even from this distance, he can spot a hint of smoke in the sky, lit orange by fire.  The dreaded sight he remembers so well, that chased him and his family from the Frontlands.  If he listens closely, perhaps he’ll hear the monsters’ howls.  His coward’s heart quivers with the need to do something, anything, only to come up empty as always.  But then, he’s not quite as useless as he once was.  He’s received an order for bandages from Collioure’s chamberlain.  He’ll double it, he decides.  No charge.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting another chapter to celebrate my personal Rumbelle anniversary. I promise I'm making progress on the rest!
> 
> Warnings for Keith making an off-screen appearance that still manages to drip with slime, and the depiction of a severely ill parent.

**TWO YEARS LATER**

Belle smiles and laughs at the right moments.  She makes the appropriate small talk at the right volume.  She conducts herself in every possible way as the gracious and lovely lady of Collioure must, up until the very last guest has retired to their chambers for the night.  Only then does Belle’s smile thin into a tight line as she stands and stalks from the sitting room and through the darkened halls of Collioure’s castle.

She shouldn’t be doing this.  It’s rude.  Callous.  But then, so was Sir Keith squeezing a handful of her backside as she passed him as if she was a cheeky barmaid.  Belle’s flesh was mostly shielded by layers of skirts and underclothes, but it still crawls with the memory of the swift grope.  Meanwhile she wonders how many baths it will take to scrub Sir Keith’s leer from the rest of her body.  No, as much as this pains her, it’s an emergency.

She comes to the entrance of the lord’s chambers, beside which dozes a seated healer who starts awake as Belle pushes the door open.  “Oh, uh, my lady, he’s-”

“I know.  I’ll call if you’re needed.”

She ignores any further protest and slips inside.  A torch is always kept burning here, for the healers’ benefit.  Bad nights are only made worse with darkness.  She pads to a table upon which lies a square of fabric with strings attached to each corner that Belle ties around her head to cover her nose and mouth.  Once this regrettable duty is done, she ventures to the bed which is shrouded by a sheer curtain.  She moves past the curtain and lowers herself into a chair stood next to the bed.

“Papa,” she says as loud as she dares, “Papa, wake up.  Please.”

The figure bundled up in the sheets stirs, and immediately starts coughing.  Each raw hack breaks Belle’s heart a little more, and guilt floods the fissures left behind.  This time at least, the attack ends after only a moment, and Lord Maurice is allowed to fall back on his pillows, heaving ragged, rattling breaths and slowly focusing bleary eyes on Belle, who does her best to only look at his eyes, and not the deep purple bruises on his neck.

“Hello, my girl.  How’d it go?”

She can’t tell him the whole truth.  Pure fury will drag him out of bed to throttle Sir Keith, and Belle won’t allow him to expend that much energy.  So, she simply says with as much conviction as she can muster, “I will not marry him.”

Maurice regards her briefly.  “He’s from a good family.  Very well established.”

“I know.”

“And aside from his inheritance, he’s amassed a fortune of his own in service to Nottingham.”

Skimming off taxes bled from starving peasants is hardly what Belle would call “service.”  But she doesn’t bother pointing this out.  “I cannot marry him.”

“It wasn’t easy to get him down here, even now the quarantine’s lifted.  He’ll not return if he feels snubbed.”

A sharp breath bursts from Belle and rush of words follow, “Please, I’ll marry anyone else.  Anyone.  I swear.  The next suitor who comes, I’ll marry him.  But not Sir Keith.  I cannot.  Do not make me.  Please.”  The rush peters out, and she sits statue-still, every muscle drawn tight in preparation to roar and rave and rage if her will is defied in this.

Maurice’s sigh ends in more weak coughs sputtering between his lips.  After the fit passes, he swallows and says, “I see.  In that case, I suppose I should tell you about another prospect I’ve been cultivating.”

“What is it?” Belle replies, barely daring to unclench in the slightest though her curiosity is piqued.

“There is a certain merchant, in the Crescent Islands.  He deals in cloth and thread.  We’ve gotten our bandages and other goods from him for the last two years.  That’s some of his handiwork right there.”  Maurice nods to Belle’s fabric mask.

She touches it and feels a swell of gratitude toward this merchant.  Though she hates the reason for the mask, it allows her the priceless luxury of visiting Maurice safely.

“It would seem he’s become quite rich by developing a kind of mechanical process of weaving.  He’s offered you his hand, and would bring his business with him.”

“That- that would be good.  Much better than a lump sum infusion for our treasury.  We can put our people to work again.  Give them something to do.”

A corner of Maurice’s mouth lifts.  “My thoughts exactly.  But aside from that, you know what truly caught my attention about this man?”

“What?”

“He has a son.  More than a child, but not quite grown yet.  It was my intention to offer a deal.  Upon marrying you, his son will be proclaimed my heir.  He, and explicitly _not_ his father, will be the governor of Collioure after I die.  Up until that time, you will instruct the youth on our ways, our laws and traditions.  And when he takes power, you will remain as his chief councilor.”

Belle stares at him in frozen silence.

Maurice turns up his palms with a shrug as he mutters, “It’s the best I can do, my girl, I’m sorry- oh!”

His words are stopped by Belle throwing herself into his arms and hugging him tight.

“Belle, please don’t,” he immediately protests, “It’s not safe, dear, please...”

She pushes herself up and regains her chair, draws in and blows out shaky breaths until she’s sure she won’t start weeping.  “This will be the end of our bloodline,” she states, because she must.

Maurice gives her a solemn nod.  “Let it end in your happiness- or your peace, I hope.”

Belle’s eyes brim with tears instantly as she returns his nod.  “It will.  This deal, I want it.  How- how do we-?”

“I’ve already had a scribe draft a response.  At first light, I’ll send it on our fastest ship.  Should arrive by supper.  If this merchant agrees to our terms, it’s done.”

“Thank you, Papa,” Belle whispers, unable to stop herself from scooping up Maurice’s hand and pressing it to her covered mouth.

“Nothing to thank me for,” he replies, voice turned bitter, “It’ll be down to you to teach this common whelp everything you know.  As long as he listens, perhaps we’ll have a governor that’s half as... as good as you would’ve been.”

Most days it’s enough to know that Maurice cares.  That he knows Belle could govern as well as any man, it’s only moribund tradition embraced by too many in the kingdom that ties his hands.  And now with this deal, she will have real power, secondhand though it may be.  She can teach this merchant’s son to rule exactly as she would.  Collioure will recover, and then it will prosper.  She will see it done.

But that’s for the future.  For now, she says, “So, he has a son and we’ve done business with him for two years and he’s very successful.  What else do we know about this merchant?”

“Not much, I’m afraid.  It seems he’s a bit of a mystery man.  I’ve been told he came to the islands five years ago.”

“Five years?”  A man with a son, who works with thread and cloth, who had the means to create a thriving trade in a new land in a very short time.  Belle’s heart gives a tiny thud.  “We must know this merchant’s name...” she prompts with a carefully bland voice.

“Well, they are fond of nicknames in those parts.  He’s known among his peers as Tsepi Chrysos.”

“Pocket gold,” Belle translates quietly, “That’s... interesting.”

The Etmes festival five years ago is one of Belle’s last purely happy memories, before the ogres came and the siege began.  War and then plague took their toll, stealing away so many, including her mother.  The memory glimmers in Belle’s mind like a flicker of light in an ocean of darkness, and at its heart lies one sweet spinner.  It’s foolish to hope, she knows, and yet... any chance to see him again...

She shoves it all away, muttering as she rises, “Anyway, I’m sorry, Papa.  I didn’t want to wake you, but...”

“It’s never a chore to spend time with you, my girl.  I’ll take all I can get.” Maurice’s gentle sincerity is shattered by a new fit of coughs he tries to hold in even as his whole body judders.

And all Belle can do is lay a hand on his arm, squeezing until the fit passes, feeling every spasm in her soul.  When Maurice can breathe evenly again, she murmurs, “Get some rest, Papa.  Good night.”

Once he’s settled she leaves his chambers, instead of doing what she wishes, like climbing into his bed and wrapping her arms around him as tight as she can, as if she had the strength to keep his soul from slipping away.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another new chapter. Probably the last one until I'm ready to post the rest. A happy My Birthday to you all!

The folded piece of parchment sits at a far corner of Rumpelstiltskin’s desk, right where the messenger left it this morning.  That’s where it stays, hour after hour, as he gets on with daily tasks and only glances at it to confirm, again and again, the seal that holds the parchment shut is Collioure’s seal.  The house seal of the governor himself, not its chamberlain.

It might be nothing more than a note thanking him for his offer, which would be a most generous courtesy on behalf of Lord Maurice to a common merchant like Rumpelstiltskin.  That must be what it is.  It must.  Anything else...  Well, he’s learned not to rule out all possibilities, even those that seem the most outlandishly fantastic.  Praise Etmes.

He keeps working, pausing only for a light lunch and tea.  King Stefan has sent a request for another ten of Chrysos’ special product.  He’s quoting a cheaper price than usual, but Rumpelstiltskin is confident he’s good for it.  When the mill bell rings out, Rumpelstiltskin stands and steps away from his desk, skirting around Lord Maurice’s letter on the way out of his office.  The last echoes of the looms’ rhythmic clatter fade away as his workers file toward the exit.  Rumpelstiltskin exchanges nods and well wishes with each person as they go, his tongue only managing the intricate language of the Crescent Islands through years of repetition.  He’s not certain how much his workers appreciate this little ritual at day’s end, but he imagines he would’ve if their positions were reversed.  That was a promise he made to himself at the beginning, to create a workplace his old spinner self would have valued.  That promise may have put a dent in his profits now and again, but he doesn’t regret it.

“Good evening to you, sir,” his foreman Peristeri says once the last weaver has gone.

“Good evening.”  Rumpelstiltskin turns on a heel to go back to his office.

“Not done yet?”

“No.  I’ve got, um- I’ve got one more thing to take care of.”

He grins, “Don’t let it keep you up all night.”

“Of course,” Rumpelstiltskin replies, returning the grin though his is surely pained.

Peristeri ducks his shaved head under the doorway lintel and strides out into the late afternoon sunshine, and then it’s just Rumpelstiltskin and the letter.  His suddenly damp palm grips at the gold handle of his cane as he approaches the innocent little piece of parchment.  Then, with an eye-roll at his cowardice, he lunges forward to snatch up the letter, break open the seal, and drag his eyes over every impossible word neatly written within.

All of a sudden, it’s five years ago, and trumpets are blaring outside his run-down hovel.  He can almost hear them, calling him to an unimaginable adventure that will change his life forever.  His life, and his son’s.  He reads the paragraph regarding Bae half a dozen more times and still can’t believe what it says.  It’s exactly what he hoped for when he first came up with the ludicrous scheme of pledging a suit for Belle’s hand.  Lady Belle, that is.  Even now his heart gives a warm flutter in his chest at the thought of her.  He squashes it instantly.  This won’t be a marriage.  It will be a transaction- a title for Rumpelstiltskin’s son exchanged for the wealth of his trade to bolster a failing village.  That’s how the rich and noble do things, isn’t it?  Anyway, after everything that Belle has endured these last five years, why would she even remember him?

For now, Rumpelstiltskin tucks the letter into a pocket and heads for the stairwell leading up to his and Bae’s rooms.  A small shrine stands at the top, and he pauses there to drop a copper coin at the feet of its statue and murmur, “Praise Etmes.”  He reminds himself to have Bae deliver the sacrificed coppers to the alms box at the local temple tomorrow, then carries on inside.

These days he could afford to buy most any home on the islands or build his own grand manor, but he’s never bothered with the effort and expense.  He and Bae have been comfortable here.  Looking around the lived-in space, Rumpelstiltskin realizes he’ll miss it, if they do end up leaving.

“Bae, are you home?” he calls.

“Out here, Papa!”

Rumpelstiltskin smiles as he walks to the balcony.  Baelfire sprawls on a round wicker chair, carving a piece of bleached coral into the shape of a swan.  Rumpelstiltskin’s smile dims as he muses that the lad probably won’t have time for creative pursuits, if he accepts his new role.  “I have something I need to discuss with you,” he says, leaning against the balcony railing.

Bae blinks up at him and pushes himself to sit straighter.  “What is it?”

Rumpelstiltskin takes a deep breath, and haltingly explains the offer he made to Lord Maurice and Lady Belle and the response he received.    “Now, of course I can rescind my suit.  At this point, it depends on you.”  He holds out a hand, inviting Bae to reply.

The lad’s eyes are wide when he finishes, the half-carved coral lying forgotten in his lap.  “They want me to be the governor?”

“Not straight away.  You’d be taught first, by Lady Belle.  She would be your chief councilor, always.”

“Lady Belle, who helped you during the festival.”

Rumpelstiltskin smiles automatically.  “Yes, that’s right.”

“She was nice?”

“Very nice.”

“So... do you want to marry her?”

He blinks in surprise, mouth opening and shutting on air for a moment.

Bae lifts an eyebrow.  “You shouldn’t marry her if you don’t want to, Papa.”

“Well, that’s, ah...”  All the benefits and consequences and nuances and politics swirl in Rumpelstiltskin’s mind, and in the end he can only say, “I do.  Yes.”  Trust his darling son to rob him of his comforting lies, leaving him with only embarrassing honesty.

Said darling only presses further, asking, “What about Lady Belle?”

“Lady Belle I’m sure wants to do what’s best for her village.  That’s how nobles act.  Or, how they _should_ act.  You can consider that your first governor lesson.”

Bae doesn’t seem sold on much of anything Rumpelstiltskin has said.  He now sits cross-legged with his shoulders hunched and his elbows braced on his knees.

“Becoming the lord of Collioure would be very good for you.  We’re doing well here, but if something happens...  If there’s a fire, or if the cloth simply stops selling, we could lose everything.  But if you have a title... That carries more weight than gold, son.  Think on it for a while.”  Rumpelstiltskin pushes away from the railing and passes him the letter.  “Let me know what you decide.”

Bae nods, eyes already scanning the parchment.  “I will.”

Rumpelstiltskin leaves him to his contemplation, unsure of what he hopes the answer will be.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S FINALLY DONE. HAPPY SEVENTH OF HALLOWEEN, EVERYONE, AND ESPECIALLY TO ME.

It’s the coldest Olene’s day Belle can remember.  And the atmosphere is as brittle as the air is chilly.  This is the first time in five years the people of Collioure have dared to celebrate the day beyond small private gatherings, and it shows in every subdued smile and quiet step.  The crowd in the village square is so much thinner than it should be, and people keep their distance from each other, for fear of a handshake or hug that could kill.  The biggest empty space might be the one left by Collioure’s governor, who could always rouse a crowd to celebration, and who currently suffers as so many of the departed did.

This day- this cold, cautious, quiet day- is Belle’s wedding day.  And at this point she’s so twisted up with nerves it hurts to swallow.  Her groom is late.  All of Collioure waits for the lookouts to report a ship on the southern horizon.  Belle hasn’t learned any more about this Tsepi Chrysos than what Maurice first told her.  The merchant’s reply to the terms laid out for the marriage was a simple agreement and confirmation of the day he would arrive for the wedding.  And so Belle has spent the last few months tossed between grim pragmatism and desperate hope.

Once or twice, she’s let herself imagine that everything was different.  That Rumpelstiltskin stayed in her life after the Etmes festival.  That somehow he gained permission to court her.  That they married on a golden Olene’s day, and Belle’s mother was there to place a crown of flowers on her head, and her father had the strength to attend the ceremony.  This beautiful dream is so strong she can almost feel sunshine on her skin, and opening her eyes to see the heavy dark walls of the tent where she waits alone but for a pair of maids fills her throat with a sob.

“My lady, are you well?” one maid asks.

“I... I just...  Excuse me,” Belle mutters thickly before shooting to her feet and parting the tent’s thick silk.  She almost gasps as cold air easily sinks through the thin material of her wedding gown.  Everyone waiting in the square turns to look at her.  She hides a flinch and strides off with the vague thought of waiting on the dock.  Her first interaction with her fiancé will be scolding him for his lateness.  She’s fine with that.

She reenters the castle on her way to the sea side of Collioure.  The most direct route takes her to the one place in the village that’s bustling- the castle kitchen is a hive of servants preparing her wedding feast and other Olene’s day treats.  She slows a little, just to enjoy heat wafting from the ovens and the animation of servants at work.  But she also notices a solitary still figure.  A large one, sitting by a hearth, munching away on a honey-drizzled cake.  Belle takes another half-step just as the figure’s single eye rolls over to fix on her.

“Hello, my lady.”

“Good day, Sir Gaston,” she replies, bobbing a swift curtsey to his nod.

“It is, isn’t it?  An important day.”

“Yes, I suppose.”  Belle silently prays that Gaston won’t bring up the failed suit he pledged what feels like decades ago.  It’s awkward enough that he still lingers in the castle.  But then, where else is a maimed knight to go?  At least the people of Collioure respect his sacrifice.  A pension goes farther when other men are often willing to buy his ale.

“I do wish you the best of luck, my lady.  Gods willing you won’t need it, but... well...”

“‘Well’ what?” Belle inquires, stepping closer.

He shrugs, “Nothing.  Just keep your wits about you, huh?  I know you can’t help having a soft heart- what kind of woman would you be otherwise?  But don’t let some commoner get the best of you.”

Belle does her best not to roll her eyes.  “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, Sir Gaston.”

“I’m talking about this Chrysos, this merchant.  What do we know about him?  What does anyone know?  Almost nothing.  And he’s going to be our governor?”

“He won’t.  He agreed, the title goes to his son.”  Belle isn’t about to describe the entire marriage arrangement here and now, but that point she must make clear.

“Well, of course a knight would honor that, or risk losing his reputation.  But a merchant, who only thinks of coin and how to get more of it?  What wouldn’t he do, if presented with the chance to gain real power?”

“You just said we know almost nothing about him.  So how can you say all he cares for is money and power?”

Gaston shrugs again, “Fine.  Maybe you’re right.  I hope so.  Just... keep both eyes open.”  His mouth stretches into a dark grin that’s further marred by the deep scarring on the right side of his face.

Belle bobs again, saying, “Very well then.  Thank you for your- advice, Sir Gaston.”

“I’m here for whatever you need, my lady.”

 _And if I need you gone?_ Belle does not ask.  She’s indebted to him, ever since the attack on the library.  Nothing can change that, no matter what she wishes.  For now, she has somewhere else to be.

Belle continues through the castle and emerges on the sea side, just in time to hear trumpets blow from the castle’s southern watchtowers.  Her breath catches and she peers out over the calm sea.  A black dot emerges on the horizon, and she feels a hot wash of something between relief and panic hit her gut.

Others who heard the trumpets come down the slope toward the dock and Belle walks unremarked among them.  There is genuine excitement in the crowd which feeds Belle’s flagging spirit.  Olene’s day is meant to be a hopeful time, she recalls.  The goddess blesses those who marry on her day with luck and, it’s rumored, true love to those she finds worthy.  Belle will gladly take some luck, though the possibility remains...

“My lady, what are you doing here?”

Belle starts and spins around, coming face-to-face with the permanent frown of Reynaud, the head cleric.

Surprise steals her voice long enough for him to continue, “You must return to the bridal tent immediately.”

“I thought to meet Master Chrysos here, as my father would, if he could.”

“That is the task of the governor’s high council.”  Reynaud gestures behind him at the assembled representatives of Collioure’s fishermen, farmers, and army.

“I am part of the council,” Belle counters, “I’m my father’s representative.”  Since Maurice fell ill, it’s been Belle’s duty and honor to attend every council meeting, assiduously recording all matters presented then delivering them to Maurice, sometimes discussing them for hours if he has the energy.  The only thing she doesn’t loathe about his sickness has been the opportunity to take an active role in governing Collioure, unofficial though it may be.

Reynaud is unmoved.  “You are also the bride.  Your part in today’s ritual must be executed in the proper manner.  You’d not risk angering our goddess Olene, would you?”

Belle is taken aback.  It seems the height of inconsequence whether she first sees her groom in the village square or on the dock, but she can hardly contradict a cleric who’s communed with the gods longer than she’s been alive.  “Of course not, but I...”

A maid from the tent dashes down the hill, a fluttering cloak gripped in both hands as she cries, “My lady!  My lady, please, you must return!”

Reynaud smiles, or more accurately his frown becomes a line.  “There now.  Off you go.”

Irritation curdles in Belle’s stomach at his dismissal, as if she was still a young girl he caught reading the holy scrolls.  But the rest of the council is watching, and some villagers have taken notice too.  And this is Belle’s wedding day.  She coughs to clear her annoyance, and says, “Very well.  Let us proceed as planned.”

She lets the maid drape the cloak over her shoulders and walk her back to the tent in the village square.  Fortunately the buzz of excitement has made its way here, and she distracts herself during the wait by listening to the low murmur of muffled conversation outside the tent.

Not long now.  Then she’ll finally know, one way or the other, who it is she’s marrying.


	5. Chapter 5

Sometime in the past five years, Rumpelstiltskin managed to forget the horrors of sea sickness.  His stomach was churning before they even left the harbor, and he nearly ascribed the discomfort to plain nerves before it rebelled completely after five minutes on the Endless Ocean.  They left the Crescent Islands after sundown in order to arrive in time for the celebration of Olene’s day in Collioure.  Rumpelstiltskin hasn’t slept a wink between bouts of vomiting.  Stretched out on the bunk built into the wall of the captain’s quarters, he’s certain he looks ghastly, and he feels worse.  At this rate Lady Belle will think she’s marrying a corpse.

Not that it matters.  She’s marrying his money, not him.  And he’s marrying her father’s title, not her.  He must remember these simple facts, or risk making a fool of himself when he finally sees her again, after so many years.

“Papa?  The village is in sight.”

Rumpelstiltskin holds in a groan as dread fills his empty guts, instead turning the best smile he can conjure on Bae, who grasps the door frame of their cabin and watches him warily.  “Good.  Good thing.  Go on up, son.  I’ll join you shortly.”

“Do you want water?”

He almost definitely needs it, but the thought of putting even that in his stomach makes it clench in warning.  “No, son, thank you.  Go up.”

“All right.”

Not for the first time, Rumpelstiltskin prays Bae didn’t agree to this just to please him.  The boy knows nothing of governance, of any kind of power.  Rumpelstiltskin can only hope Lady Belle’s instruction instills more than knowledge in Bae, but love for the place he will be lord of.  He has more confidence in that than he does most anything else when he imagines the future.

But he must get through today first.  He drags himself off the bunk and tries in vain to brush out the wrinkles in the black silk of his coat while checking for flecks of bile.  Then he takes his cane from where it’s propped in a corner and stands as still as he can with both palms braced on the handle, eyes closed as he draws air in and out.  The stillness of his body slowly sinks into his mind, and he feels the dispassionate mask of the man called Tsepi Chrysos slip into place.  That is who they are expecting, after all.

He makes his slow, careful way up on deck.  The brisk air helps to further steady him as the ship approaches Collioure.  At his first glimpse of the village he can’t stop himself from scanning the crowd of tiny figures gathered at the dock, looking for a head of rich brown curls which is of course not there.

The water is too shallow for the Crescent Islands ship to reach the dock- a rowboat is coming out to ferry Rumpelstiltskin and Bae to shore.  The boy climbs a rope ladder down and into the smaller vessel first.  His father tosses him his cane, and then grits his teeth through his own much more agonizing descent.

“Are you all right, Papa?” Bae whispers once Rumpelstiltskin has settled next to him.

“Yes, son,” he hisses, while in truth the pain has brought the nausea swarming back.  He closes his eyes and breathes until the mask is more or less in place again.

When they reach the dock, he does his very best to completely ignore the gawping crowd, focusing only on making sure Bae gets out of the rowboat safely then doing so himself with as much grace as he can manage.  Once they’re both on dry land, a group of men approach them, led by a stern-faced fellow wearing a deep blue robe.  Searching his memory, Rumpelstiltskin recalls him as the cleric who led the blessing of Etmes.

For his part, the cleric gives Rumpelstiltskin the tiniest puzzled squint before shaking his head minutely and announcing, “Master Chrysos, welcome to Collioure.  I am the head cleric, Reynaud, and these are the other members of Lord Maurice’s high council- Arnaud, Martine, and Captain Brevet.”  He gestures to the men accompanying him.  “Sadly, the governor himself is unable to join the festivities today.  You and your son will be taken to meet with him when circumstances allow.”

“I see,” Rumpelstiltskin replies, then nods to the council, “Good day to you, sirs.  Will the wedding proceed now?”

Faint laughter that Rumpelstiltskin can’t quite interpret ripples through the crowd.  The council member named Martine quips in an undertone, “If anyone thought he was late because of cold feet...”

“Well, I suppose there isn’t much point in waiting,” Reynaud says, “This way.”

He leads Rumpelstiltskin and Bae from the dock and through Collioure.  Looking around, memories of the village they left behind flash through Rumpelstiltskin’s brain against his will.  War and plague have taken their toll- a considerable number of buildings either bear damage from ogre strikes or are boarded up with white X’s slashed in paint on their doors.  The people who watched their arrival follow and join those waiting in the square- both groups together aren’t enough to fill it.  Rumpelstiltskin scans their faces, but again doesn’t find Belle among them.  His gaze falls last on the tent that stands centered on the east side of the square, its thick silk gently swaying in the cold breeze.  He’s not sure what purpose it could serve except sheltering the bride.  His bride.  Rumpelstiltskin’s gut clenches, and this time there isn’t a rocking ship’s deck to blame it on.

“Pardon me, Master Chrysos.”

Rumpelstiltskin whips around at Reynaud’s soft address.  “Sorry, yes?”

“If you please.”  He’s been led to a table placed opposite the tent, upon which rest three circlets made of plant limbs with small green leaves and tight yellow buds.  Reynaud has picked up one circlet and now places it on Rumpelstiltskin’s awkwardly ducked head.  Then he raises a hand and a group of musicians in a corner of the square start up a slow, sweet tune that’s almost carried away by the wind.

The attention of the crowd shifts away from Rumpelstiltskin’s side of the square, and his heart thuds wildly in his chest as his guts become a solid knot and he stares straight ahead in perfect petrification.  This was a huge mistake.  A moment of impulse that’s gone way too far.  It’s going to be a disaster.  He can’t possibly do this.

A small hand slips into his free one and gives his clammy palm a squeeze.  Bae.  This is for Bae.  He’ll have a place no one can take from him.  He’ll be part of a lineage.  He’ll be respected.  Important.  Safe.

A moment passes like a year, then a person steps up to Rumpelstiltskin’s right side, and the second circlet is placed on her head.  He should look.  He must look.  But he can’t.  He’s too ashamed.  His head is swimming.

Reynaud puts on a smile that aims at benevolent which he directs at the pair in front of him and then at the crowd.  “Greetings, my friends, on this fine day.  Let us show our devotion to the magnificence of Olene, in hopes her gentle guidance will light our path to greater glories in these troubled times.  In her name we now join the two spirits before us, our dear Lady Belle and our new brother Tsepi Chrysos-”

“Rumpelstiltskin,” Belle says.

Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes slam shut and his throat seizes up.  Only forcing his face into a blank mask allows him to glance over at Belle without vomiting or bursting into tears.  Her face is even more beautiful than he remembers, despite how pale it is, and how utterly unreadable.

Reynaud blinks and frowns at Belle.  “What was that?”

“His name,” she replies, “It’s Rumpelstiltskin.”

He squints, “Rumpel... once more?”

“Rumpel is fine,” Rumpelstiltskin rasps out between clenched teeth.

Reynaud still looks baffled, but mercifully continues, “Right, well...  Our new brother- Rumpel.  Will you both please take hold of this wreath?”

Rumpelstiltskin has run out of hands.  If he lets go of Bae or his cane he feels equally likely to collapse on the spot.  In the dwindling seconds he has to decide, he lets the cane fall against his hip.  This is the correct choice- the increased pain from putting more weight on his bad leg helps subdue his rioting emotions.  He grasps the third circlet, as does Belle.

Reynaud holds it at a spot between their hands, then raises his free hand to declare, “On behalf of Rumpel and Belle, we beseech the great goddess Olene to bless their union with good health and prosperity, and with the boundless joy of true love.”

Rumpelstiltskin’s guts churn with misery.  Why even bother with this farce of a ceremony?  It will probably offend Olene, considering the reasons it’s happening at all.

“Rumpel.”  He stirs from his bleak musings at Reynaud’s address, “In the name of Olene, do you vow to honor and cherish Belle and call her ‘wife’ until your spirit rests in Ulthar’s care?”

A flash of warmth in his heart allows him to say, “Yes.”

“Belle, in the name of Olene, do you vow to honor and cherish Rumpel and call him ‘husband’ until your spirit rests in Ulthar’s care?”

Belle dutifully responds, “Yes.”

Warmth reaches Rumpelstiltskin’s heart again, filling it with a melting ache as he pretends for a moment that Belle’s vow is real.

“With the exchange of vows, the ritual is complete,” Reynaud announces, “And now it is my privilege to present the lord- or, the _lady_ of Collioure and her husband!”

The square fills with cheers from the crowd and the musicians plunge into a sprightly tune.  Rumpelstiltskin finds his gaze wandering to Belle, catching the lovely sight of her smile before she sees him looking and her face shutters.  He quickly turns to Bae while letting go of the circlet to grab his cane.  Bae’s is the only smile he can return and he also indulges in ruffling his son’s curls.  This brief moment of happiness ends when Bae leans around him to grin at Belle.

He wins her smile as well as a small curtsey.  “Well met, Master Baelfire.”

“Hello, Lady Belle,” he says with his own short bow, “I’m ready to learn how to be a governor.”

Her soft chuckle is the best music Rumpelstiltskin has heard so far.  “That’s good, though I think for now we should enjoy the festival.  Your lessons will start soon enough.”

“What are you and my father supposed to do now?”

Rumpelstiltskin silently thanks Bae for asking the question he doesn’t dare voice.

“Well, now we go to that tent over there and sit and relax.  Dance, maybe.  Um, I can have a chair brought over for you, would you like that?”

“All right,” Bae replies and in the next instant she marches off into the crowd.  He shoots a shy glance at Rumpelstiltskin, “Do you mind if I sit with you?”

“Not at all, son.”  He’ll use Bae as a human shield for as long as possible.  For now he raises a hand to slip the circlet off his head.

“No!”

He freezes, just his eyes widening to see Belle marching straight back at him.

“Don’t take it off,” she says.

And Rumpelstiltskin speaks to her for the first time since they parted five years ago, “Why?”

“Neither of us are supposed to.  Not until, um...”  She trails off, lower lip caught between her teeth.

“Until what?”

“Until tonight.  I’m supposed to take yours off.  And you take mine off.”

A wave of terror washes through him.  For her part, Belle’s cheeks flush bright pink just before she spins around and marches away again.  Rumpelstiltskin watches her go, then heaves a desolate breath and leads Bae to the two chairs within the tent.  He gingerly lowers himself into one and gestures for Bae to take the other, but Bae shakes his head and stands to the side of his father’s chair.

Rumpelstiltskin and Belle are not going to have a wedding night.  This was implied in his letters with Maurice, and all but ensured by the agreement that Bae would be named the governor’s heir.  With that settled, there’s no need for Belle to produce a son, and so no need for Rumpelstiltskin to...  Anyway, gods know how he’s going to get this pile of twigs off his head now.  There’s a smell to it he didn’t notice before- not a bad one, but not one he wants to live with until the thing falls apart and drops off.

“Here we are!”

He startles as Belle reappears, setting a chair down for Bae then taking her own beside Rumpelstiltskin.  Her eyes glance over him, but she seems to greatly prefer looking out at the crowd.  The assembled villagers have finished one dance and now begin another.  Rumpelstiltskin watches for lack of anything else to do, and then with real curiosity as he notices something familiar about the dance.  All of the men extend their right arms and grasp an object in their hands.  These vary from spoons to handkerchiefs to drink mugs, and all stay completely still while the dancers move around them.  Between the time of his injury and today, Rumpelstiltskin has only danced once.  And he remembers every single step of that dance.

He might be wrong, but he can’t help turning to Belle and murmuring, “This dance, ah, is it...?”

Like a single ray of sunshine parting clouds, a tiny smile graces Belle’s face.  “You started a trend, way back when.  The best dancers can hold a full mug of ale without spilling, or a lit candle without losing the flame.”

Rumpelstiltskin huffs out a laugh, gaze dropping to his lap as he replies, “I see.”  He can’t comprehend how the dance that was mostly Belle’s creation is remembered at all, let alone the basis for a trend.  But he’s glad for it.  The people seem to enjoy it.  He certainly did, way back when.  Dancing with Belle was...  He never felt so free, so light.  It would be easier now, with his cane instead of his taller walking staff.  Didn’t Belle mention earlier that they might dance?  He turns to her again, heart already fluttering before he even asks, “Belle, would y-?”

His words stop as he registers a stormy glare directed at him from a spot to the far right of the tent.  Sir Gaston, wearing chainmail and leathers beneath a heavy cloak, stalks past, giving a nod clearly meant for Belle only.  Rumpelstiltskin’s gaze follows him, and then flinches away as the knight turns to reveal poorly healed damage to the right side of his once sculpted face.

“I see Sir Gaston is still in residence,” Rumpelstiltskin remarks, “Are you not free of him yet?” Something else he remembers well about the Etmes festival is Gaston’s hostility, which was so venomous Belle had to sneak Rumpelstiltskin out of the castle to avoid the worst of it.

“He’s served Collioure with honor,” Belle states flatly, “He has earned a place here, for as long as he chooses to stay.”

 _Gods damn it all_ , Rumpelstiltskin growls in his mind.  He once told Belle he was lucky not to share a living space with Gaston, even one as big as a castle.  Life is funny like that.  So, he’s going to have to put up with the tragic figure of the valiant knight bearing his nobly-got wounds.  Perhaps the war improved his personality as much as it marred his face.  Perhaps Belle would prefer to be sitting next to Gaston in this tent, and was only prevented because Rumpelstiltskin’s money made a better match.

That makes a great deal of sense, even as it sours his stomach.  And in this moment, his sleepless night of seasickness and anxiety catches up with a vengeance, and he sets his aching head in his hand to rub at his brow, only to bump the circlet still perched there.  “Look, Bae and I have had a long journey,” he says to Belle, “I’d appreciate it if you arranged some chambers for us to retire.  Can you do that?”

Belle’s face is chilly as she blinks at him.  “Oh, uh, yes, that’s been done- or, well...”

“Good.  Thank you.  We’ll go to the castle and ask a maid to direct us.  Come along, son.”  Rumpelstiltskin reaches over and plucks Belle’s circlet from her head, then leans toward her until she does the same for him.  “Good day, my lady,” he mutters with a nod, gaze not rising higher than her skirts before he turns away and walks from the party.  People are probably watching, but he can’t make himself care.  He’s done all that was required of him today.

“Papa, are you sure we can’t stay for the festival?” Bae pipes up beside him.

“You’re welcome to if you wish, but I’ve had enough merriment and need to rest.”

“I... I’d like to talk to Lady Belle some more, if you don’t mind.”

Rumpelstiltskin ignores a dull sting of betrayal.  “I certainly don’t mind, son.  Go on.”

“I’ll join you soon.”

“Very well.”

The boy trots off, leaving Rumpelstiltskin to make his way into the castle even more alone than he was the first time.


	6. Chapter 6

Belle is supposed to understand now.  All the mystery was supposed to vanish when she saw her groom’s face.  And yet, as she trudges into her chambers as a married woman, she is more confused than she’s ever been in her life.

Walking from the tent to the altar was complete torture as she stared at the back of her groom’s head, certain it was Rumpelstiltskin then certain it wasn’t, and back again over and over, still undecided even as she came to join him and Reynaud.  Five years seem to have made him an entirely new man.

His worn but serviceable peasant clothes were replaced by the dark silk of a certain class of merchant- seeming plain until one noticed the quality of the fabric. His hair, that sandy brown fall of silken strands Belle once had the briefest pleasure of weaving her fingers through, was cut brutally short and faded almost all to gray.  And his face- she might have only recognized it by the particular shape of his nose.  Otherwise it was completely alien as he held it rigid like someone twisted a dagger between his ribs but he was too proud to scream.

All in all, though everything went as planned, in Belle’s opinion her wedding was a disaster, and she’ll be lucky if Olene doesn’t strike her down for this mockery of a holy ritual.  And now here she is, holding two circlets with no husband to show for it.  Her shame burns bright as she recalls the looks shot her way from the crowd after Rumpelstiltskin plucked the circlet from her head and stalked off.  If she needed clearer proof that anything he may have felt for her five years ago is dead and gone, this is it.  She rips open the nearest drawer and hurls the circlets into it, slamming it shut with both hands.

The gossip-mongers will chew on her humiliation for months, perhaps years.  Funny little Lady Belle, who ruined what beauty she had by squinting at books, couldn’t keep her husband by her side for a full ten minutes after they married.  And then Gaston had the absolute _nerve_ to ask her to dance, as if she would taint the memory of her and Rumpelstiltskin’s first and only dance by letting Gaston swing her around on their wedding day.  At least he seemed faintly chastened by her curt refusal, wandering off to bother someone else for a change.

And she did have Baelfire to keep her company.  He’s a sweet boy, with his father’s soft brown eyes and the gentle smile Belle remembers best.  If he’s as intelligent as he is respectful and friendly, Belle has high hopes for their coming lessons in governance.  However, they can only begin after Maurice has officially appointed Baelfire as his heir, so they’ll need to wait until he can draw a full breath, which hasn’t happened for several days.  This is supposed to be Belle’s wedding night, and she’s wondering if she might spend it sitting at Maurice’s bedside, watching his shallow pants for air.

In the end, she claws her way out of her dress and curls up in bed, chastising herself for feeling so alone.  As early as this morning, she would’ve been thoroughly grateful to not have a man in bed with her tonight.  But now all she can do is mourn her dashed hopes until she drifts into a gray doze.

Soft dreams of warm arms wrapped around her and slow breath stirring her hair shred and blow away the moment Belle wakes.  Though nearly all of her wants to roll over and pretend to sleep until nightfall, she knows perfectly well she has a council meeting to attend, and so drags herself out of bed and prepares for the day.  She is the first to arrive at the office of the governor, and takes her customary seat behind the wide oak desk.  Her days in this chair are numbered, she muses, even as a glorified messenger for Maurice.  But then, when Baelfire takes the role of governor, her clever father has guaranteed Belle will still have a place here, in fact a better place than what she has now.  She will be more than content as Baelfire’s chief councilor, using all her intelligence and love of Collioure to guide its people to a better future through him.

The rest of the council trickles in, first Reynaud, then Brevet, then Martine and Arnaud, the last two looking rather rough around the edges.  Belle reminds herself to speak quietly.  The gazes of all four councilors barely glance over her as they perform their bows and greetings and take their seats.  Belle can’t imagine what state they expect her to be in after the wedding.  Thinking of the future has improved her mood enough to smile at the assembled men.

“Good morning, councilors,” she says, “Shall we begin?”

Reynaud lets out a tiny cough.  “Ah, are we expecting your... that is, Master Chrysos?”

Belle blinks at him, “Oh, well, that’s not been discussed really.  I’m certain he will be very occupied with installing his mill in Collioure, but I suppose he should be invited to provide the council with updates on his progress.”  She means what she says, even as she dreads having Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes boring into her at every meeting.

There’s a hint of relief in Reynaud’s voice as he replies, “Yes, very good.”

Martine sniffs in his seat and mutters, “It’d be the least he could do.”

Belle squints, “Excuse me, Councilor Martine?”

The pink-faced man huffs and flicks a lock of black hair from his forehead.  “Just wondering why we bothered with a whole Olene’s day festival he didn’t even stick around for.  Bloody foreigner.”

“He’s not- well... He came to the Crescent Islands from Collioure.”  Belle looks around at the blank faces of the council.  “Do none of you remember?  Captain Brevet, I know you were on the border investigating the first attacks.  But, five years ago, he was our Etmes lord.”

The blank faces gain furrowed brows.  Arnaud grunts, dragging thick fingers through his heavy red beard, “Yeah, I remember him.  Little spinner fellow.  Seemed nervous.”

Martine waggles a finger, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember too, he came from the Frontlands.  Ha!  A foreigner twice over.”

“I’m certain he meant no offense by leaving the festival early,” Belle lies, “He told me that he needed rest following his journey from the islands.  Surely we can appreciate that.”

Brevet lets out his own huff, “Let’s hope his son isn’t so delicate.  Last thing we need in a governor.”

Belle frowns at the consternation wafting in varying degrees from the whole council.  “I’m sorry, I was given to believe my father’s plan to revitalize Collioure had received your approval.  If you have objections, this is an unfortunate time to bring them up.”

“No objections, my lady,” Reynaud replies in a mollifying tone, “Though perhaps some- concerns.  As you say, he is not wholly an outsider, but that doesn’t mean he knows our ways.  It may go hard if he does not learn, quickly.”

“Baelfire will learn,” Belle retorts, conviction burning in her gut, “I will teach him.  Now, can we move on to other matters?  Lord Maurice is waiting for your reports.”

The council thankfully abandons the subject of Rumpelstiltskin and Belle sets to recording what they have to say about the current state of Collioure, which could be worse than it is.  And it will improve, as long as its people allow Rumpelstiltskin and Baelfire and the mill to become part of their lives.  Which Belle can’t be sure of.  Not yet.

Once the council’s reports are ready, the men depart and Belle prepares to take them to Maurice, in hopes he is awake enough to receive them.  In fact, she considers, perhaps she should bring Rumpelstiltskin and Baelfire with her.  If Maurice is feeling better, it would be smart to complete two tasks while they have the opportunity.  Once Baelfire is officially made the heir, his education can begin, which will further secure his place in the village.

With this decided, she leaves the office and makes her way to the guest chambers to see if they are awake.  Her husband.  And her stepson.  Belle pushes those irrefutable facts away as she knocks on the door.  It opens, revealing a maid.

“My lady, Master Chrysos and his son left a short while ago.”

“Where?”

“They didn’t say.  I’m sorry, my lady.”

“It’s no matter.  Please carry on.”  She waves the maid back to her chores.  Where on Earth can they be?  And why didn’t they mention their apparent plans to her?


	7. Chapter 7

Rumpelstiltskin wakes slowly, and blinks at surroundings he’s only seen once before, and never during daylight.  The best guest chambers are as lovely as he remembers, even with a patched hole in the outward facing wall.  The various kinds of sickness that gripped him when he collapsed into bed have eased away.  He climbs out with his stomach already growling and scoops up his cane to walk to the adjoining room where Bae still slumbers.

Rumpelstiltskin sets his hands on the mattress and rattles it mercilessly while declaring, “Up you get, son, there’s work to do!”

Bae moans and tries to burrow into his blankets.  Rumpelstiltskin continues the rattling until his fluffy head pops up.  “All right, stop!  What are we doing?”

“We’re going to see an old friend.  Once Peristeri and the crew arrive to start the installation and training, we’ll need to see them properly housed.”

“Properly housed?  So, do you mean...?”

Rumpelstiltskin leans close to murmur, “I mean breakfast at Granny’s tavern if you’re clean and dressed in the next ten minutes.”

Bae leaps out of bed and begins frantically snatching up clothing, much to his father’s amusement.  He leaves the boy to it, returning to his own room to wash and dress.  As he does, his imagination floats the concept of some other world, where he woke with Belle wrapped up in his arms, breathing in the scent of her hair.  They’d likely have had breakfast together, clinking their tea cups and feeding each other pieces of fruit.  Rumpelstiltskin shakes away the absurd fantasy with a silent scoff.  He needs to sharpen up.  He knows Granny to be a tough old lady when coin _isn’t_ involved.  It’s what makes him mostly sure she has survived Collioure’s hardships.  That, and the superior constitution of her kind.  He’s seen her eyes flash yellow enough times to figure out what she is, even as he knows well enough to keep it to himself.

He and Bae leave their chambers shortly, and ignore the curious looks thrown their way as they exit the castle and head down the main road.  Memories rush back to Rumpelstiltskin with every step.  He and his small family may not have lived in Collioure for long, but it was good here.  And then it was utterly marvelous, for precisely one day and one night.  Those memories shine in his head, precious in their scarcity and how impossible they are to recreate.

Granny’s establishment stands as it did, though Rumpelstiltskin thinks the roof has been patched.  He allows a tiny sigh of relief to find no white X on the tavern door as he pushes through it.  The room beyond is nearly empty, and Granny herself cleans a mug behind the bar.  She glances their way, then pauses and takes a harder look.

“My gods, is that you, Rumpelstiltskin?”

He grins, “Indeed it is.  I was... at the festival yesterday.  Or didn’t you attend?”

Her white eyebrows jump, “Attend the festival?  I was too busy tending bar.”

“Really?  Red wasn’t here to...?”  Sudden dread strikes him.  Wolves aren’t immune to rampaging ogres.  “Oh.  Granny, I’m so sorry, is she-?”

“No, no,” the old woman replies, waving a hand, “When things started looking bad, I sent her off to live with her mother.  Anita and I don’t get along too well, but I knew she could protect Red.”

“Even from ogres?”

Granny gives him a steady look.  “Even from ogres.”

With an inner sigh of relief, he asks, “Has she been back to visit at all?”

Granny’s mouth twists around some unspoken words.  “She has.  Once.  That’s a story for another time.  What brings you here this morning?  Shouldn’t you be enjoying a banquet up at the castle?”

Rumpelstiltskin winces.  Perhaps he should be.  If so, no one informed him.  In any case, Bae has bounced up on his toes to exclaim, “Pancakes, please!”

Granny chuckles, “Glad to see the high life hasn’t spoiled your palate, Bae.  Two plates of pancakes, coming up.”

“There’s also a matter of business you and I need to discuss,” Rumpelstiltskin interjects, “Though pancakes are an additional priority.”

Soon he and Bae are seated at a table, and when Granny brings their food she joins them.  Rumpelstiltskin explains that he needs room and board for incoming workers.  “I’m not certain yet how long they’ll stay.  Some might remain in Collioure permanently.  We’ll have to see.”

Granny considers this, and eventually gives a shrug.  “Well, it’s not like I’m going to turn them away.  The only people who’ve stayed at my inn in the last five years have been wounded soldiers and those stricken with the black throat.  They’re all long gone now, Ulthar be praised.”

“The black throat?” Rumpelstiltskin echoes weakly.

Granny gives a stoic nod.  “The black throat plague.  There’s a fever first, then it goes after the muscles in your throat and chest.  Kills them, eventually.  Your own body suffocates you.  It can happen quick, or slow.  It took our Lady Colette quick.  Lord Maurice is going slow.”

Rumpelstiltskin’s only encounter with Lady Colette flashes through his mind.  She radiated joy that night, clearly loving the topsy-turvy traditions of the Etmes festival.  Sympathetic grief fills his heart as he thinks of what Belle must have endured, and is now enduring.  How can she even put one foot in front of the other?  He can’t imagine.

“The worst seems to have passed, not too many slow-goers left.  But, ah... be careful, eh?  It’s nice having you two around again.”

“We’ll be careful,” Bae replies before shoveling his last huge bite of pancakes into his mouth.

“Or you’ll choke on my cooking first.  Slow down, boy!”  She reaches over to pat Bae’s back.  To  Rumpelstiltskin she says, “You know this’ll only get worse.  They’re bottomless pits at his age.”

He grins, “I’ll inform the kitchen staff.”

“Right, right, you don’t have to concern yourself with common things like that anymore, do you?  Time certainly changes a man.  So does money.”

Rumpelstiltskin’s grin fades.  “It does.  But I’d still like to consider myself your friend.”

Granny’s smile is crooked and falsely begrudging.  “Always, spinner.”

They negotiate a price of two silver coins a week for his workers’ room and board, then Bae and Rumpelstiltskin bid Granny farewell and leave the tavern.  Rumpelstiltskin casts a look further down the road, to the smallest cottages collected near the farmers’ fields.  He wonders if he might find the one he and Bae called home.  Perhaps it was stomped under an ogre’s foot.  He decides he doesn’t want to know, and ventures back up the road to the castle.

As soon as they enter the front hall, a maid scurries up to them.  “Master Chrysos, Master Baelfire, Lady Belle requests your presence urgently,” she rushes to say with a short curtsey.

“Oh, all right,” Rumpelstiltskin replies, “Ah, where are we to go?”

“Lord Maurice’s chambers.”

He exchanges a glance with Bae.  It seems there won’t be much of a breather between Rumpelstiltskin’s big day and his son’s.  They follow the maid through the corridors until they reach one that has Belle standing at one end, arms crossed over a sheaf of papers held to her chest, one foot tapping.

“There you are!” she snaps an instant before her eyes jump to Bae and her entire form softens, “Lord Maurice is feeling better today.  I thought we might have you officially recognized as the heir before I go over his reports with him.  Will you come with me?”

Bae swallows.  “Um, can my father come too?”

Belle blinks, eyes darting over Rumpelstiltskin and back.  “Of course.  Lord Maurice will want to speak with him as well.  Here, you’ll need to put these on before entering.  Just in case.”

She passes them two fabric face masks.  A corner of Rumpelstiltskin’s mouth twitches up as he recognizes the construction of one of his products.  He nearly remarks on it to Belle, but she’s occupied tying Bae’s mask around his head, so he keeps quiet.  He’s done enough damage already with nothing more than his absence.

Once all of their masks are secure, Belle leads them into the chambers at the end of the corridor.  Rumpelstiltskin trails behind her and Bae, trying to ignore memories of stumping along behind Milah’s sharp stride when he’d done something to displease her.  Belle isn’t Milah.  There is no dead love festering between them.  He hasn’t done anything to shame her.  Not yet.

Within the bedroom stands a large bed shrouded by a curtain.  In the bed a prone figure draws steady rasps.  Two healers stand at attention nearby.  Rumpelstiltskin’s hand instinctively rises to Bae’s shoulder, ready to keep their distance from the sick man, however heartless it makes him feel.

Belle draws back the curtain, revealing Lord Maurice, who gives a wan smile between wheezes.  “At last we meet, Master Baelfire.  And...” He squints at Rumpelstiltskin, “and my Etmes lord.  I did think our paths might cross again, when that letter came from the Crescent Islands.”

Belle starts.  “You did?  But you never said...”  She trails off into pinch-mouthed silence, eyes once again darting over Rumpelstiltskin and away.  He can’t fathom what she could be thinking.

He and Bae bow.  “It is good to see you, my lord.  I wish the circumstances were better.”

Maurice’s eyebrows jump.  “Better?  What can be better?  My daughter has married a good man who will help our people, and here’s a fine lad to take the governor’s seat when the time comes.  Master Baelfire, what do you think of Collioure?  I know she’s not much to look at right now, but with a little work, I’m sure you’ll lead us to better days.”

“I’ll work hard, my lord,” Bae asserts, “And I’ll learn everything I can from Lady Belle.”

Maurice nods, “You can’t ask for a better teacher.  Belle has forgotten more than most people know about our village and our ways.  She will-”  His words are cut off by a sudden flurry of coughs that grow louder and harsher until the whole bed shakes with them.  The healers descend, trying to soothe Maurice in any way they can.

Rumpelstiltskin must look away, only to see Belle staring at her ailing father, arms clasped around her middle like a child lost in the cold.  He aches to go to her, despite how unwelcome any of his clumsy attempts at comfort would be.

The attack fades, but leaves Maurice gasping with glazed eyes and purple cheeks.  Still he manages to whisper roughly, “Let it be witnessed here... that I, Lord Maurice of House French... recognize Baelfire of... Baelfire as the heir to the governor’s seat of Collioure.”

“Your word will be recorded, my lord,” Belle murmurs, dropping into a deep curtsey.

He nods, heaves a huge and rattling breath, and lies back on his pillows.  One of the healers pulls the curtain around the bed.  Belle, Bae, and Rumpelstiltskin stand outside in pained silence.

After a moment, Belle ushers them out.  In the corridor she pulls off her mask, and her face is just as blank underneath.  She glances down at the papers she carries.  “I suppose these will have to wait.”

“Those are the reports, right?” Bae asks, taking off his own mask.

“Yes.  The governor of Collioure receives daily reports from his council on the current affairs of the village.”

Bae nods.  “Um, do you want to show me them?  So I know what they look like?”

Belle blinks and a small smile graces her face.  “I think that’s an excellent idea.  Unless your father has something else for you to do...?”

Her gaze slides over to Rumpelstiltskin, who can only wave his free hand and mutter, “No, by all means, let the lessons begin.”

“Very well.”  Belle gives him the tiniest of curtseys, and then she and Bae march off together to parts unknown.  Rumpelstiltskin can only watch them go with a strange mix of happiness and jealousy.  He’s never had to share Bae with anyone, not even his mother, for all she had equal rights to the boy.  He thinks if it was anyone but Belle walking away with his son, he wouldn’t be able to stand it.


	8. Chapter 8

Life slowly finds a new kind of normal after the wedding.  Maurice’s health stabilizes enough to allow Belle to present his reports, and now Baelfire accompanies her to see how Collioure’s governor converts the reports’ information into plans for the village.  Afterwards, Belle takes the boy to the castle library to instruct him on their history and traditions.  Baelfire’s attention can wander during these lessons- Belle accepts that as the nature of boys his age and either guides him back on topic or allows their discussion to venture where his mind has gone, depending on the subject and her own mood.

If not for her daily interaction with Baelfire, Belle might forget the events of Olene’s day ever happened.  Rumpelstiltskin’s time is apparently fully absorbed by preparations for his business.  This is good, Belle decides.  It’s why he’s here, after all.  He makes sporadic appearances at council meetings to report on his progress.  This has mainly consisted of ensuring the building chosen to house his looms is in the best condition possible before their installation.

A few weeks after Olene’s day, workers from the Crescent Islands arrive, causing as much of a stir as can be mustered among the survivors of Collioure.  That night Belle arranges a feast at the castle’s great hall in their honor.  It’s the first time since the wedding that she’s sat alongside her husband.  She receives his stilted bow with a nod and smile before he takes his chair.  Their easy conversation from five years ago about Frontlands sheep and Marshlands bees is replaced by brittle silence.

The Crescent Islands workers troop in, about ten women and half as many men looking freshly scrubbed and wary.  The council also attends, along with Baelfire who sits on his father’s other side.  The final seat is occupied by Gaston, who is not staggering drunk as he was at the Etmes festival.  Today his lone eye casts coldly measuring looks at all of the newcomers.

When everyone is assembled, Belle stands and raises her cup of chouchen.  “We gather tonight to welcome our new friends from the Crescent Islands...”  She pauses as she notices another voice speaking under hers.  She realizes soon enough that Peristeri, the remarkably tall fellow that Rumpelstiltskin identified as his foreman, is translating her words.  He falls silent and looks to her with raised brows.  She coughs and considers switching languages, but then decides to stick to her own so everyone understands, “The people of Collioure thank you for leaving your homes to come to the aid of strangers in a new land.  We hope you will be comfortable.  If there is anything we can do to help you help us, you need only say so.  For tonight, please enjoy the feast.”

The workers smile politely as Peristeri completes his translation.  Cups are lifted all around and the feast begins.  Baelfire quickly captures his father’s attention with an enthusiastic recounting of what he learned in the day’s lessons.  Rumpelstiltskin listens with doting interest, and Belle finds her gaze wandering over him while unobserved.  His haircut isn’t so bad, she decides.  It reveals his fine cheekbones, and the short strands glint a lovely silver in the candlelight.  His dark clothing is quite nice as well, flattering his form which is now naturally lean rather than painfully thin.  His voice hasn’t changed at all, still low and so beautifully accented as he answers one of Baelfire’s questions.  He could spend a day reading books in the library out loud and Belle would eagerly attend the performance.

Her eyes manage to slide away from Rumpelstiltskin only to catch Baelfire shooting a curious look at her over his father’s shoulder.  Heat flares in her cheeks and she scowls at her lap.  What is she doing?  Rumpelstiltskin made it clear on Olene’s day what he expected from their relationship, or lack thereof.  She was nothing but a means to an end for him, an end which arrived the moment Baelfire was named Maurice’s heir.  And now he has his mill to occupy him, leaving no space for Belle to squeeze into.  She lost that chance when she walked away at dawn after the Etmes festival.

The feast comes to a quiet end.  Belle bids everyone a good night, and the assembled workers file out.

“See you tomorrow, Belle,” Baelfire tells her as he stands with Rumpelstiltskin, who turns to her with another bow.

Belle thinks she’s going to pass the whole evening without exchanging a single word with her husband, but as he straightens he mutters, “Thank you for holding the feast.  It was very thoughtful.  G’night.”

“Oh, you’re welcome, um...”  If she could think of anything else to say, she would have to say it to Rumpelstiltskin’s back as he herds Baelfire away from the table and follows the workers from the great hall.  She stays in her seat, willing her unruly heart to stop its ridiculous fluttering against her ribs.

“My lady, are you well?”

She starts and notices Gaston has come to stand near her on the opposite side of the table.  All of the feast’s other attendees have left, allowing the servants to clear the tables.  Belle injects pleasantness into her voice to say, “I’m perfectly well, Sir Gaston, thank you.”

“I’m glad.  I’ve been meaning to speak with you.”

“About what?”

He takes another step forward and rests a hand on the table, leaning over it to say in a low voice, “You’ll recall that I traveled to the Crescent Islands some years ago, when that beast of a squid invaded their harbor, yes?”

Belle nods.  How could she forget?  For weeks Gaston barely spoke a sentence that didn’t become more boasts about spearing the animal between the eyes, and laments of how he couldn’t bring its green-striped mantle back as a trophy due to the stink.

“I’ve renewed my contacts there so I might learn more about our Master Chrysos.”

“Gaston...” Belle sighs, wishing he’d brought up any other topic under the sun than Rumpelstiltskin.

“Please, my lady, of course I wouldn’t bother you with this if I didn’t think you needed to hear it, for the sake of Collioure.  You know my only concern is the well-being of everyone in our village.  That’s no less true since my injury.”

Sour guilt squirms in Belle’s gut as her gaze is dragged to the marred half of Gaston’s face.  How can she deny him a moment of her attention, when he’s given so much?  “All right,” she says, “What is it I need to hear?”

“Firstly, don’t you find it odd that Master Chrysos managed to do so well for himself in so short a time, in a foreign land where he didn’t even speak the language?”

Belle shrugs a shoulder.  “A chest full of gold can overcome all sorts of obstacles, Sir Gaston.  Including language.”

He holds up a finger.  “Indeed, especially for a man willing to associate with those who are easily bought.  It’s well known in the islands that shortly after Chrysos’ arrival, he gained a business partner.  This man was called Zoso, and he was a ruthless villain, eager to do whatever it took to improve his lot and put down others.  He taught Chrysos everything he knows.  It’s rumored that Chrysos learned his lessons so well, he eventually grew tired of sharing profits with old Zoso.  It’s said-”

“Sir Gaston, are you seriously accusing my husband of murdering his business partner?”

The knight looks taken aback.  “I wouldn’t say that, my lady, not at all.  Not without proof.  I’ll keep digging, shall I?  And as we agreed earlier, you’ll keep your eyes open.”

He’s spun around and walked away before Belle can tell him not to waste his time on a half-baked investigation of Rumpelstiltskin’s past.  His words can’t have an ounce of truth in them, can they?  She doesn’t know what to make of this mysterious Zoso, if he even exists.  But what could Gaston gain by lying about it?  Perhaps nothing more than the bitter pleasure of causing turmoil- he has little else to occupy his time.  Belle shoves the unworthy thought away and shoves herself away from the table.  She’s not going to solve this mystery tonight, and Maurice has asked to know how the feast went, if he’s awake to hear her account.

She goes to his chambers, and to her surprise is told by the healer stationed outside that Maurice will be able to see her.  She enters and ties on a facemask, stepping past the bed curtain to greet him with a short curtsey.

“Ah, hello, my girl,” he replies warmly, his voice only a little breathless, “I suppose the evening was a success?”

“You may suppose.  I don’t think it was a failure.  The workers seem like a good lot.  And no one will know better than them how to assemble the looms and train our people.  Although...” She frowns.  “I’m not sure how many of them speak our language.  We might need to teach them certain words and phrases, and have anyone who wants to work on the looms learn some of their tongue.  That might be a challenge...”

“Perhaps.  Though you’d be surprised how many languages they speak on the Crescent Islands.  They trade with all sorts there, and the man who can converse with the most people makes the most money.”

Belle hums while her mind presents an image of Rumpelstiltskin the meek spinner wandering into a bustling Crescent Islands market and coming out as the poised Tsepi Chrysos.  It’s not impossible, is it

“Something else on your mind, dear?”

Belle blinks away from her musings.  Gods, how much time left does she have with her father, and this is how she chooses to spend it?  And yet, she can’t help asking, “Papa, did you know Rumpelstiltskin was the merchant who offered to marry me?”

“If I’d known for certain, I would’ve told you.  As such, I didn’t want to get your hopes up.”

Even as her cheeks heat, Belle gives her head a toss and inquires, “What would make you think that?”

“Because I was in possession of working eyes at the Etmes festival five years past,” Maurice quips, “And since you came of age, there’s only one other person who caught your attention as he did.  And though he was a commoner, at least he didn’t have teeth like daggers and the strength of ten men.”

Belle ducks her head as memories rush in and a soft swell of pain squeezes her heart.  It’s been some time since she thought of Collioure’s aborted alliance with the wolf kind pack in the first year of the siege.  Negotiations for the wolves to protect the village fell through when their leader Anita demanded that the surrounding forest be proclaimed her territory and the penalty for interfering in pack business would be execution.

Meanwhile, Belle formed a quick friendship with Anita’s daughter, their bond deepening when Belle learned Red’s grandmother lived in Collioure.  After accompanying Red on a visit to the old widow’s inn and tavern, they stayed the night, and found their way into each other’s arms.  Belle wouldn’t call what they had love, really.  More a frantic grasp at something good, something she could call her own in a world swiftly spinning out of control.  She mourned that more than the loss of Red herself when the pack left.

Colette and Maurice were suitably shocked when Belle haltingly confessed the reason for the sorrow that plagued her.  Though they didn’t hate the wolf kind, others in Collioure most certainly did, and wouldn’t tolerate Lady Belle giving her heart to one, no matter how sweet her toothy grin.  They couldn’t undo what was done, but it was decided that the relationship would be kept secret, to protect Belle’s reputation.  Maurice hasn’t breathed a word about it until now.

“Something tells me you’re not quite the euphoric newlywed one might have hoped,” he says gently, “Was it more of a passing interest between you two back then?”

“No- I... I don’t know.”  Belle wraps her arms around herself, and pictures Rumpelstiltskin’s stony profile at the wedding ceremony.  “Five years is a long time.  People can change.”

“When two hearts recognize something in each other, no amount of time can change it, my girl.  But you may have to go a few layers deeper to find it again.”

Belle nods.  It was awkward, and inconvenient, and even a bit alarming, but she knows the connection forged between her and Rumpelstiltskin during the Etmes festival was real.  And it still exists in the heart of him.  It must.  The only question is if he still wants to share it with her, or not.

For now, knowing she must be taxing Maurice’s limited strength, she stands and picks up his hand to give it a kiss from behind her mask.  “Thank you.  I’m so lucky to have such a wise father.”

He smiles, “Rest well, dear.”

Belle returns to her chambers and prepares for bed.  At one point she glimpses the rising moon through a window, and says a quick prayer to the lunar goddess Umera for Red’s safety and happiness. 

Lingering bittersweet reminiscence has her looking for a certain book of poems she missed giving to Red before the pack departed.  It was a risk to keep it, but the words were so lovely and tonight all she wants is to return even briefly to her time with Red.  However, as she runs a finger back and forth over the spines, she doesn’t see _Poems for Vielle_.   It’s gone.


	9. Chapter 9

Rumpelstiltskin walks briskly to the former grain storehouse that will become his mill.  The sun is bright today but not quite as hot as it has been.  It puts a lightness in his heart that has him toying with the idea that he might join Baelfire’s lessons with Belle.  Collioure is Rumpelstiltskin’s home too after all, permanently this time.  Even if he’s not its governor, he might at least know it.  Also, the mental image of him, Belle, and Bae sitting together in the library, almost like a family, is a rather pretty one.  Of course, he wouldn’t want to be a distraction.  Not at all.  But if he’s very quiet and still, perhaps Belle would allow him to stay.

Five looms are taking shape in the mill-to-be.  There’s room for five more, depending on the success of the first group.  He certainly hopes they will succeed.  Orders have already been sent from customers excited to learn Chrysos has moved his trade to the mainland, cutting down on shipping costs and delivery time.  King Stefan’s special order in particular should not be kept waiting much longer.

Rumpelstiltskin approaches Peristeri and exchanges greetings.  After a moment spent observing the workers assembling a loom he says, “Perhaps we’ll have a test-run today, see what we’ve accomplished so far.  What do you think?”

Peristeri nods.  “It’s as good a time as any.”

They hold off until the end of the workers’ shift before hooking up the mechanisms to power one loom with wind coming off the sea and preparing it for use.  Soon the air is filled with the rhythmic clatter Rumpelstiltskin didn’t think he’d miss as the loom’s shuttle shoots back and forth and across the shifting warp threads.  As a weaver monitors the loom and everyone else stands by to watch, the first fabric made by Chrysos’ mill in Collioure emerges, smooth and clean.

Rumpelstiltskin smiles, and signals for the loom to be halted.  In the language of the islands, he says, “Good.  Good thing.  The work continues.  Thank you for your effort.”

He likes to think there’s pride in the workers’ responding smiles and nods before he leaves the new mill and journeys back to the castle.  On the way to his chambers, a maid stops him, “Master Chrysos, my Lord Maurice wishes to see you.”

“Very well.  In his chambers?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you.”  Rumpelstiltskin swiftly heads in that direction, soon sharing a nod with the healer currently stationed at Maurice’s door, then going to the table to take up a face mask.

Maurice gives him a warm if weak smile as he steps past the curtain shrouding his bed.  “Evening, Rumpelstiltskin.  Or should that be Chrysos?”

“It’s no matter, my lord, whatever you prefer,” he replies, sitting in the chair next to the bed.

Maurice lets out a small hum which becomes a muffled coughing fit.  Rumpelstiltskin waits, torn by pity that feels disrespectful, until the fit passes and Maurice heaves a raspy sigh.  “Gods above, to hell with this damned illness.”

“I’d heard you were doing better,” Rumpelstiltskin murmurs.  The bruises on his neck don’t look much worse than they did after the wedding.  Perhaps there are more spreading down his chest under his nightshirt.

“I am, believe it or not, or else we’d not be talking.  The sea air does me good.  It’s meant to, anyway.”  He nods toward some open windows, and Rumpelstiltskin can admit the cool breeze drifting through is quite pleasant.  Thoughts of the sea remind him of an idea he had days earlier.  “My lord, I’ve been thinking about your illness, this plague,” he says, “There is something that might-”

Maurice waves a hand.  “Please, another time.  I get enough of that talk with my healers.”

Rumpelstiltskin presses his lips shuts.  He supposes the idea will keep for now, especially if Maurice’s health is in fact improving.

“What I would like to discuss is you.  How are you doing?”

He blinks at Maurice for a long moment.  “Well, ah...  We’ve made good progress on the installation.  We had our first test-run on a loom today.  It went very well.  So, we’ll continue with that, and hopefully begin production before autumn.”

Maurice now blinks at him.  “That is good to hear.  But I didn’t ask about your business.  I asked about you.  How are _you_ , Rumpelstiltskin?”

“Oh, I- I apologize, my lord,” he replies, glad the mask covers his flushing cheeks, “I am... I’m well, as well.  That is, uh, certainly not...  No complaints.  Yes.  No complaints.”

Maurice lets out another hum, which mercifully does not become a second fit.  “I see.  And how is your wife?”

Again Rumpelstiltskin is struck mute.  How could he possibly know the answer to that question?  But then, he grimaces inwardly, how can he possibly _not_ know the state of the woman he vowed to honor and cherish until death?  Gods, does any world exist where he isn’t an utter failure of a husband?  Clearly it’s not this one.  “I wouldn’t really know, my lord,” he confesses in a mutter, staring morosely at his lap.

“Ah, you too, eh?”

Rumpelstiltskin’s gaze jerks up to see Maurice’s rueful grin.

“I suppose it’s what I get for raising a dutiful daughter.  She doesn’t know how to be anything else.  She’ll endure just about any hardship in silence, for the sake of those she loves.  Even protect us from mild unpleasantness if she feels she must.  But she’s human, Rumpelstiltskin.  She needs a shoulder to cry on, like anyone.  She’s lost her mother.  She’s lost- dear friends.  She’s losing me.  And so...”

“So...?”

“So ask her how she’s doing.  Can I count on you for that?”

“Yes, of course,” Rumpelstiltskin answers quickly, though he feels like he’s been asked to slay a dragon.

“Fine then.  Many thanks.  You know I had a good notion about you from the first, my Etmes lord.  Knew you were a match for Belle.”

“Y-you did?”  Rumpelstiltskin sputters, but Maurice is already settling into his pillows, eyes falling shut.

“We’ll speak more later, Master Chrysos.  Good night.”

“Yes.  Good night.”  Rumpelstiltskin removes his face mask and wanders from the lord’s chambers, lost in bafflement.  He didn’t dare to hope Maurice remembered him in any particular detail after they first met, let alone thinking him worthy of his daughter’s hand.  What could’ve made him think that?  Could Belle have said something?  Memories surge through his mind of their last moments at the end of the festival, when she pulled him close and their lips met and the entire world vanished and it was just him and her, together.  Every time he tells himself how impossible it is that Belle could care for him, the fact of their kiss stands like a boulder against the tide.  It happened, it was real.  It’s not likely to happen again of course, but it could be enough to build something on.  A friendship, or anything but the stiff and silent regard between them now.

He will try.  If nothing else, he promised Maurice.  With that decided, he retires to his chambers for dinner with Bae.  By morning, he’s actually excited to go to a council meeting.  It’s not been long since the last one he attended, which makes his appearance a surprise to Belle when he arrives.  He aims for a friendly smile, thinks he might actually manage it.  “Good morning, my lady.”

“Good morning,” her voice is tiny, and she watches with wide eyes as he takes his customary seat.  The rest of the council soon joins, and she focuses intently on the report she writes for Maurice.

“The next scheduled day of devotion is the service in honor of Ybius, my lady,” says Reynaud when his turn comes, “Am I to assume you will attend in our lord’s stead?”

“Yes, I will,” Belle replies, adding a note to the report.  Her gaze finally lifts to Rumpelstiltskin, who tries to project relaxed attentiveness.  “What progress have you made, Master Rumpelstiltskin?”

He wonders if she’ll ever call him Rumpel again.  Maybe someday, if he’s lucky.  “We had our first test-run of a loom yesterday,” he says, daring to let a little pride bleed into his voice, “It went well.  I expect more progress to continue apace.”

She returns his smile with a plain nod, then bends her head to scribble on the paper.

“Oh, you don’t need to include that.  Maurice and I spoke of it last evening.”

Her eyes jump to him, and this time they’re hard with suspicion, her mouth pinched tight.  He can’t imagine why.  “I see,” she mutters, and places her quill in its well.  To the council she says, “If that’s all, gentlemen, I’ll deliver the reports to Lord Maurice.  Good day.”

The other men respond with their bows and well wishes and file out.  Rumpelstiltskin, however, stays in his seat.  The frosty air radiating from Belle makes his stomach churn, but he has a promise to keep.

“Was there something you forgot?” she inquires.

“No.  I, ah...  I just wanted to ask...  How are you doing?”  The question falls like a rock from his mouth, but he resists the urge to chase it with meaningless babble, simply allowing Belle to hear and reply.

Her brow furrows like he’s spoken another language.  “I’m- fine.  Considering.”

Of course.  Considering her ailing father and ailing village, and everything she’s already lost.  Considering the man sitting before her that she’s bound to for life, who she doesn’t even know.  Well, she can come to know him if they spend more time together.  “Right.  Good.  Ah, I was wondering, perhaps, if it’s not too much trouble, if I might join you and Baelfire in the library, during your lessons.  It wouldn’t be every day.  I’ll likely be occupied at the mill more often than not.  But, I would like to learn about Collioure.”

Now she stares at him like he’s speaking another language from a second head.  “That- that’s what you want.  Just that.  Nothing else.”

Rumpelstiltskin furrows his own brow.  “Nothing else,” he assures her, while his mind reels in an attempt to work out what she expected to hear, why she expected to hear anything.

“I... I mean, of course you may,” she says, eyes dropping to the desk as if whatever answer she’s looking for is written there, “I don’t understand... why would...?”

“Why would what, my lady?”

Again that hard stare bores into him.  “Nothing,” she states.

That is a blatant lie, but Belle seems to have turned to stone in her chair, so Rumpelstiltskin simply says, “Very well.  Until later then, my lady.”

“Yes.”

He leaves the governor’s office, wracking his brain for the instant where he offended Belle to her very core.  He hasn’t the faintest clue, even as he returns to his chambers at the end of the day.  Looking for a distraction, he goes to the bookshelves he assumes are packed with overflow from the library.  One slender volume protrudes about an inch further than the others.  He pulls it out, reading _Poems for Vielle_ on the cover.  Curious to see if poetry might ease his harried mind, he takes it to bed and opens it, pausing when a handwritten note on a page at the front catches his eye:

_To Red, the most beautiful wolf in the forest.  Yours, Belle_

Oh.  Rumpelstiltskin blinks at the words once, then again, as if the letters might rearrange themselves.  Then he sets the book aside and puts out his candle.  In the dark, he comes to the slow conclusion that he is relieved.  At least Belle isn’t pining for Gaston, though any flickering hope he had of rekindling his own connection with her gutters out.  He certainly can’t compete with a wolf.


	10. Chapter 10

Belle’s mind has ricocheted between ugly thoughts and uglier thoughts since she discovered the theft of _Poems for Vielle_.  Rumpelstiltskin can’t truly have been blackmailing her at the council meeting, can he?  But then, he’s never asked her for anything before, not a single thing, not until he had leverage over her, possibly.  And yet, what he asked for- just to sit in on Baelfire’s lessons- she never would have objected to that if he’d just requested it.  In fact, she would’ve been pleased by his interest.  Why would he feel the need to force her agreement?  Does he have some dark, inexplicable plot against the lessons?  Is he sending a message about how far he’ll go to get even one more benefit out of their deal?

Chrysos learned to do whatever it takes to get what he wants.  That’s what Gaston said.  Will he demand more for his silence?  How much more?

Belle has no answers.  Just a gap on her bookshelf where _Poems for Vielle_ is supposed to be, the black space glaring at her every time she enters her chambers.  She’s spent two nights now in a fragile doze that leaves her feeling half-alive by dawn.  She drags herself through preparations for the day, and her reports for Maurice are a barely coherent collection of scribbles.

Now her stomach is in knots by the time she approaches the library, and Baelfire nearly has to jog to keep up with her sharp strides.  _Please not today_ , she silently begs the gods, _He said he’d likely be too busy with the mill.  Please let him be too busy today._

Rumpelstiltskin’s head jerks up from the book he’s reading when Belle and Baelfire step inside the library.  He moves the book to rest on his thigh under his palm, though not quick enough to hide its particular size and shape from Belle.  Her knotted stomach turns to stone.  How bloody brazen is this man?

And there’s that smile of his, the one he gave her during the council meeting, so warm and pleasant, as if nothing at all is amiss.  “Good day, my lady.  Hello, Bae.”

“Hey, Papa,” the boy calls, and goes to his father’s side at the table where Belle usually conducts their lessons. “You can sit there, Belle,” Baelfire says, pointing to the chair on the other side of Rumpelstiltskin.

“Oh, sorry, am I in your place?” Rumpelstiltskin asks, already standing.

“It’s fine,” Belle spits out before using all her willpower to soften her bearing.  She still has a lesson to give.  Rumpelstiltskin won’t ruin that for her.

He nearly does still, simply by sitting in his chair in total silence, presumably listening as Belle describes the ecology of Collioure’s corner of the Marshlands.  Midday light shimmers through the library’s high windows, and deep in her mind Belle mourns what could have been.  That impossible world where Rumpelstiltskin isn’t playing some twisted game, where he truly cares for her and for Collioure, where he and she and Baelfire can sit together like an actual family.

The sunshine moves, and the library dims, signaling the end of the lesson.  “I think it’s time for lunch,” Belle says, “Do you agree, Baelfire?”

“I guess,” he responds.  Belle’s surprised to not find hunger gleaming in his eyes.  By this hour his stomach has usually growled at least once.

“Bae, could you run to the kitchens and have them bring something for us to the sitting room down the hall?” Rumpelstiltskin asks.

“Sure, Papa.” Baelfire heads off, leaving just Belle and Rumpelstiltskin.  Her stone stomach turns to ice.

“We could’ve given the message to a passing maid,” she mumbles.

“Well, it does the lad good to run around.  We don’t want him getting indolent, do we?”

Belle can only blink at him.

“Anyway, I wanted to take a moment to... well, here.”  He holds out _Poems for Vielle_. 

Belle lets half a second pass before she snatches it from his hand.  The cover is warm from where it was pressed between his palm and thigh.  She opens it and sees her most personal dedication right where it should be.  She closes it and curls her arm around it, holding it tight over her heart.

“I thought you’d probably be wanting that back.  It seems like a- a cherished item.”  He leans forward slightly, drops his voice to say, “Look, ah, if it’s meant to be for you and Red, then...”  He blinks, “Well, I’m not sure how I would figure into that situation.  But, you know, stranger things have happened.  I’m living proof, eh?”

“She... she’s a wolf, though,” Belle hears herself say in a tiny voice, “People wouldn’t like it.”

Rumpelstiltskin blinks, then starts, “Oh!  Right, no, they wouldn’t.  Sometimes I forget...  I know her grandmother, you see.  And her.  Do you remember when I told you Bae was staying at the widow’s inn during the Etmes festival?”

Belle’s heart stutters.  This is different from her oblique mention of their dance at the wedding.  This is something he told her when she went home with him.  When they had tea and talked and...  And when she pulled him close and they kissed like it was what they were born to do.  “I remember,” she whispers.

“Well, I worked out what she and Red were back then.  But it was never an issue between us.  I forget that it is for other people.”  He rolls his eyes and shakes his head with a grimace, “Gods, you must have been half frantic to get that book back, considering all that.  Rest assured it never left my side after I found it.”

“Found it?”

“Yes, in the bookshelf in the guest- or, in my chambers.  Don’t know how it got there.  Perhaps a maid borrowed it and put it back in the wrong place.”

“Perhaps,” Belle gasps while drowning in a wave of relief and not a small amount of shame.  She leaped at the chance to think the absolute worst of Rumpelstiltskin, didn’t she?  How could she do that, when all of two days ago she left her father’s chambers hoping she might rebuild their bond?  Determined in this moment to bury her ludicrous suspicion and make her hopes reality, Belle reaches out and lays a hand over Rumpelstiltskin’s.  “Thank you for protecting this.  What was between Red and I... it’s over now.  But, well, as I said...”

“People wouldn’t like it,” he finishes, “It’s unfortunate, but undeniable.  I’m sorry for that.  Sorry for all you’ve lost.  You know, I’ve truly m-”

The door to the library swings open and Belle and Rumpelstiltskin’s hands fly apart.  Baelfire ducks his head in to say, “Papa, Belle, I told Mistress Potts about lunch.”

“Wonderful, thank you, son,” Rumpelstiltskin quickly declares.  To Belle he says, “Shall we?”

In a total flip from how she might have felt ten minutes ago, there’s nothing Belle wants to do more than have lunch with her husband and stepson.  They go to the nearby sitting room and enjoy a meal of sandwiches and fruit and tea.  Belle notices Baelfire just about makes it through one sandwich, instead of putting away two or three and asking for more.  However, Rumpelstiltskin doesn’t seem concerned by the boy’s lack of appetite, so she doesn’t risk making Baelfire self-conscious by pointing it out.  What does she really know about a growing youth’s eating habits anyway?

“Baelfire,” she says.  He blinks away from whatever thoughts were leading him to stare blankly at the table and focuses on her.  “I think you should attend the council meeting tomorrow, and then come with me to deliver the reports to Lord Maurice.  How does that sound?”

“Can you wake up that early, son?” Rumpelstiltskin quips with a raised brow.

“I can,” Baelfire affirms with a stubborn thrust of his chin.

“Glad to hear it,” Belle says, “Still, would you like me to come fetch you?”

“You don’t have to.  I’ll be there.”

“Very well.”

They part ways for the day and Belle heads for her chambers where she slides _Poems for Vielle_ firmly under her mattress.  Knowing it’s there, right beneath her head, finally wins her a decent night’s sleep.

In the morning, she settles behind the governor’s desk and tells the servant who delivers her tea and a piece of buttered bread to fetch an extra chair.  Once it’s set beside her, she keeps a close eye on the door as Reynaud, Brevet, Arnaud, and Martine arrive.  When they’re all seated and waiting, the last huffs into the silence, “Can we begin?  I’ve other things to do today.  We all do.”

“I understand,” Belle replies gently, “It’s just that-”  The office door opens, and Baelfire shuffles in.  Belle smiles, “Ah, there you are.  Come, sit here.”

Baelfire hurries to the extra chair and drops into it.  From this distance, Belle can see his face is pale and shiny with sweat.  He must have run all the way here.

The councilors eye him like a large insect that’s fluttered into the room.  Belle presses on with the day’s business.  “Councilor Martine, Councilor Arnaud, have you asked around about who would like to take up work at the mill when it’s ready?  I’m certain it won’t be long now.”

The two councilors twist their mouths and shift in their chairs.  “Yeah, well, see,” Martine starts, “It might be difficult to get people interested.”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s women’s work, isn’t it?  Weaving?  An honest farmer doesn’t do that job.  And his wife’s got enough to do at home.  Or she should anyway.”

Arnaud grunts in agreement.  “Fishermen fish.  It’s what they do.”

Belle lifts an eyebrow.  “And I suppose their nets fall fully-formed from the sky, yes?  Of course nobody weaves those.”

Arnaud huffs, “That’s different.”

“Hm, yes, that’s not ‘women’s work,’ is it?”  Arnaud cringes while Belle turns her attention back to Martine.  “You lost your wife to the black throat, didn’t you?”

Grief erodes enough of the man’s stubborn pout for him to mutter, “Yeah.”

“A terrible loss, for certain.  She left behind your five children, didn’t she?  None of them followed her?”

This fact allows some pride to lift his chin.  “Still here.  All five.”

“That’s a blessing.  And do you care for them?  Cook, clean, put them to bed?  Mend their clothes?  Is that women’s work?”  Before he can muster a new excuse, Belle continues, “No, it’s not, because work is work.  And people are people.  And among them there are those who are strong enough to do the work, and those who aren’t.  So, I would appreciate it if you could explain that, if Collioure is to survive, we need strong people for the mill.  Can you do that?”

The “Yes, my lady” that answers her is more of a grumble than she’d like, but she accepts it, and the meeting carries on.  Soon she has her reports and the councilors are dismissed.  She turns to Baelfire to say, “So that’s about how it goes, usually.  Do you have any questions?”

His face is still pale, still sweaty, and he blinks glassy eyes at her for a second or two before slumping out of his chair.

“Gods, Baelfire!” Belle cries, diving to catch him before he hits the floor.  She pulls him into her arms and lays a hand over his burning forehead.  “ _Help!_ ” she screams over her shoulder, and prays someone is close enough to hear her.


	11. Chapter 11

“Master Chrysos!”

Rumpelstiltskin turns away from the supplies he’s organizing at the mill to take in the uncommon sight of a maid outside the castle, her face chalk white as she drags in gulps of air.  “What is it?”

“Y-your son, sir.  He’s fallen ill.”

A wave of icy terror hits Rumpelstiltskin, freezing him to the spot for a breathless second.  _Black throat, black throat, black throat_ , his mind screams, instantly conjuring images of Bae choking through a rotted neck.  And then he runs in an uneven lope that sends bolts of pain up from his ruined ankle with every graceless stride.  The maid follows, silently guiding him on the decades-long journey from the mill to the castle, through the halls to a set of chambers miles away from where Bae should be.

Belle is there, as is the chief healer for Maurice, though they’re both vague shapes Rumpelstiltskin must get around to reach the bed where Bae lies, his face waxy as he twists a bit of sheet between his fingers. “Bae, I’m here,” Rumpelstiltskin gasps as he drops on the edge of the bed and draws a hand over his son’s damp curls.

“I’ll be fine, Papa, I will,” Bae insists, though he can’t hide the fear in his fever-bright eyes, fear Rumpelstiltskin hasn’t seen since they fled their ogre-infested homeland.  He thought he’d done what was necessary to rid Bae’s eyes of that fear forever.  But he failed.  He got comfortable, got lazy, let himself explain away his son’s recent lack of appetite and overall fatigue.  And now Bae will pay the price for his father’s neglect.

Something white appears in a corner of Rumpelstiltskin’s vision.  A face mask, used to protect the healthy from the plague.  He wants to hurl it into the nearest fire.  “He just has a fever,” he hears Belle murmur, “But, it might be best, to be safe...”

A small voice within Rumpelstiltskin is cursing her for luring him and Bae back to this poisoned town.  Was the tiniest hope of rekindling what he might have found with her five years ago worth his son’s life?  Not remotely.  He shuts his eyes and draws a slow breath, willing that voice to be silent.  This is not Belle’s doing, nor her wish.  She cares for Bae.  And even if she didn’t, it would still be an awful inconvenience for the brand new heir of Collioure to...  He takes the mask, but can’t make his numb fingers tie it on.  “It’s just a fever,” he mumbles, “You don’t know... it might not...”

The healer moves closer, “Master Baelfire will be watched closely.  Bruises can begin to form in days, or after a week, depending on the type of bla-”

“I see,” Rumpelstiltskin rasps, not allowing the hated term to pollute the air.

Bae has shut his eyes and turned his head into his father’s palm.  Days, or a week.  Fast, or slow.  Could Rumpelstiltskin choose what he preferred- the merciful agony of a quick end, or the merciful agony of watching his son’s decline, as Belle has watched Maurice’s?  Either way he’ll likely turn to dust straight after.

Gulping down bile, Rumpelstiltskin whispers, “Rest, son.  Everything will be fine.  I promise.  I love you.”  Though he feels Belle and the healer tense, he leans down and presses a kiss to Bae’s damp forehead, before bending to grab the cane that clattered to the floor at some point and levering himself up from the bed.  “You’ll see to him,” he instructs the healer, only able to glance at the man to confirm his nod.  “Good.  I will return to check on him later.”

With that, he strides from the room, or at least limps quickly while his ankle throbs.  He may have to ice it later, but for the moment he has much, much higher priorities.

His mind is so packed with the buzz of planning he barely notices Belle trotting after him until she grasps his shoulder.  “Hey, are you all right?  Where are you going?”

He pauses and half-turns to her, daring to actually raise his eyes to her face.  It’s pale and drawn with worry, and her eyes are red-rimmed.  Perversely, it almost makes him smile- imagine a noble lady crying over the fate of a spinner’s son.  Incredible.  “There’s something I must do, as quickly as possible.”

“What is it?”

It’s an idea that came to him days ago.  He tried to discuss it with Maurice, but had let it go unvoiced.  Now, it is the only speck of hope he can cling to if the worst happens.  And indeed, if the worst doesn’t happen, he realizes it could be hope he might give to Belle.  But he shouldn’t taunt her with it now.  Not when it might end up an impossible dream.  “It’s... just a matter of business I need to take care of.”

He only realizes how monstrous the words sound when he sees Belle blink and frown in puzzled distaste before muttering, “Oh.  All right.”

“I will return,” he rushes to say, “I just need to...”

“No, please, by all means,” she says, flicking her hand, looking at anything but him, face shuttered.

No words come to save Rumpelstiltskin from his blunder, all he can do is blow out a breath and keep moving.  Back through the corridors and out of the castle and down to the mill where Peristeri crouches to check the construction of a new loom.  He immediately jumps to his feet and crosses the floor to Rumpelstiltskin when he’s barely a few steps inside.

“Sir, is it true?  Is Baelfire- does he...?”

“He has a fever, that’s all we know for now,” Rumpelstiltskin replies, distantly impressed by the speed of Collioure’s rumor mill.

Peristeri gives a solemn nod, “I see.  I’m sorry, sir.”

He waves a hand with a wince, “There’s no need for condolences.  Not yet.  You see, I’ve been thinking.  I once heard of a medicine made from a new-grown tentacle of the prásinos ríga squid.  Do you know it?”

Peristeri nods even as a frown spreads across his face.  “It is rare.  Very difficult to make.  Very, _very_ expensive to buy.”

Rumpelstiltskin wags his head impatiently, “Yes, well, what good is money if it can’t buy this?  I know it heals almost like magic.  It could be Bae’s only hope.”

“It could,” Peristeri echoes, his frown gaining an air of steely determination.  “You want me to return to the islands?  Get the medicine?”

“As fast as you possibly can.”

“I’ll need gold.  Like I said, the price will be very high.”

“You’ll take a full chest, and agree to whatever is asked.  I’ll write a note swearing to pay the remainder, if needed.”

Peristeri raises a brow.  “That gold is meant for Collioure.”

“It can be replaced.  King Stefan’s shipment, it’s past time since it was filled.  That will make up some of the loss.”

“Some.”

A stony anger burns in Rumpelstiltskin’s heart.  “You know if it cost all of my fortune and whatever Collioure has left, I would pay.”

He nods again, “Of course.  It will be done, sir.”

Rumpelstiltskin reaches up to give Peristeri’s shoulder a squeeze as he dares to breathe just a little bit easier.  If the medicine exists, Peristeri will get it, he is certain of that.

The rest of the day is dedicated to arranging a boat, piling gold into a chest, and writing the letter to accompany it.  Rumpelstiltskin waves to Peristeri as the swift schooner carrying him catches the wind and sails out onto the Endless Ocean.  Instead of pondering all the things that must go in his favor for this hasty plan to work, he returns to Bae’s new chambers in a far reach of the castle.  He finds the boy asleep, and Belle reading in a chair with her face covered by a mask.  She returns his nod as he creeps into the room.  He almost wants to ask if she’s been here since he left, but he won’t risk disturbing Bae’s sleep with pointless chatter.  The boy’s face is peaceful, his breathing blessedly even.  Rumpelstiltskin prays to every god starting with Etmes for it to stay that way.

He leaves as silently as he came.  Now he truly does have a matter of business to take care of.  No one else knows this particular process.  He doesn’t dare reveal his secrets.  They’ve made him rich, more than all the face masks, bandages, bedsheets, napkins, clothing, thread, and anything else his trade has ever produced.

In the mill, once the candles are lit, he assembles the required colors.  All thread he spun and dyed himself, in a multitude of greens and grays and browns, along with some blues, black, and a certain dusky yellow.  He takes them to the only loom that will not be part of the mechanized team.  He weaves through the night, losing himself in the work, the tension of the warp, the color of the weft, the cloth that slowly emerges.  He’s barely tired at dawn, and he’s got enough fabric for more than two cloaks.  In daylight it’s an ugly smear of dull colors.  At night, in many terrains, a cloak made of this material can render its wearer all but invisible.


	12. Chapter 12

If Rumpelstiltskin and Baelfire came to Collioure’s rescue only to be brought down along with it, like a swimmer dragged to their death trying to save a drowning person, Belle’s guilt might consume her.  Even if she had little personal control over the course of events- the ogres invaded the Marshlands, Rumpelstiltskin sent his offer of marriage, Maurice accepted it.  Etmes chose him years ago.  But Maurice would have listened if Belle rejected the offer.  Belle could’ve controlled herself, remembered her place and Rumpelstiltskin’s, during the festival.  None of this was inevitable, if she’d only known...

After three days Baelfire’s fever is down, but he still aches and his throat is rough and swollen.  And yet his neck remains free of bruises.  So, they still know nothing for sure.  Belle’s stomach feels as though it’s floating in acid, waiting for the news that will turn it to stone that plummets to her feet.

She can only imagine how Rumpelstiltskin feels.  This is because she hasn’t seen him since the day Baelfire collapsed.  As far as she’s been able to discern, he’s spent every day at the mill, only returning for brief visits with his son before retreating to his chambers.  Belle is choosing with all her might not to think the worst of this.  She knows Rumpelstiltskin loves Baelfire.  He must be utterly terrified.  Perhaps burying himself in work is the only way he can cope.  Belle is a little envious that he can fill his time so completely and so productively.  None of her duties take her away from the castle, where she gravitates to the cliff’s edge that is Baelfire’s sickroom.

The boy sleeps most of the time, grimacing against aches as tiny coughs issue from his mouth.  Belle often wracks her memory for the subtler symptoms of black throat, but she knows she must leave it to the healers to make the final call.

Meetings with the high council were cancelled until the governor’s office could be cleaned from top to bottom.  Today Belle is finally allowed to regain her seat behind the desk and wait for the councilors to file in, each one eyeing the place where Baelfire fell like it’s going to spawn a screaming black-throated demon.

Belle plasters on a smile and greets them, “Good morning, councilors.  I’ll start by saying the healers have yet to name Baelfire’s illness, though he is still feeling poorly.”

Martine sniffs, “The slow plague then.”

Belle’s smile falls to a stern frown.  “Councilor Martine, what did I just say?  There is no reason to make any assumptions at this time.”

Reynaud coughs gently.  “That is certainly true, my lady.  However, the other councilors and myself wonder if we might discuss contingencies, in case of ill fortune.  Indeed, should Lord Maurice and the boy pass into the arms of Ulthar together, the village will most likely be in dire need of strong spiritual guidance, and so perhaps the head cleric would take the gov-”

“Like hell,” Brevet bites out, “Maurice and I came up the ranks in King Hector’s army together.  But for a bit of luck, _I’d_ be governor of Collioure.  I’m as good an heir as any-”

“Except this ain’t the army, it’s a village,” Martine chimes in tartly, “No one’ll want a soldier marching about barking orders.  Maybe the people who feed the village ought to run it, eh?  Farmers know this land, when do we get any power over it?”

Arnaud grumbles into his beard, “Fishermen feed the village too.”

Reynaud scoffs, “A _farmer_ as governor?  We’d be the laughingstock of the Marshlands.”

A black scowl fills Martine’s face as he leans forward in his chair, body clenching from neck to fists.  “Better than a puffed-up, knock-kneed, dogsbody to the gods-”

Brevet starts in again, “I know Maurice would want-”

“Who gives a toss what a dead man wants-?”

“SILENCE!” Belle shrieks as she shoots to her feet.  The councilors drop their argument to gape at her.  She draws in and releases two slow breaths through her nose until she can speak in an icy tone, “It seems I must remind you that our governor and his chosen heir are not dead yet.  I am appalled that you are so eager to forget.”

Barely a hint of shame flashes over Reynaud’s face before he’s put on his mollifying mask.  “My lady, we meant no offense.  As I said, we only wish to prepare for the future.  After all, the fate of Lord Maurice is all but inevitable, as is the boy’s, if he has caught the dreaded plague.”

He’s right, which makes Belle that much more furious in her fresh grief.  “I will discuss the matter with Lord Maurice.  And you, as his loyal council, will abide by his decision.”  She sits, and straightens parchment and quill on the desk.  “For now, let us focus on the present.  Councilor Martine, what have you to report?”

The meeting carries on in a brittle fashion, and everyone breathes easier when it concludes.  Belle attempts to take the reports to Maurice, but is turned away at his chamber door, told he is sleeping.  Cut adrift, she wanders back to her chambers and exchanges the reports for a book which she carries into the castle courtyard.  The summer sun pounds down on Collioure, but there are still leafy, shadowed places here she can sit and escape, just for a little while.

However, the sound of regular movement and soft, masculine grunts from somewhere nearby drives Belle away from her reading.  She peers between the trees to see Gaston performing some training exercise with a wooden sword.  His form is still sharp, if slower and less showy than five years ago.

One spin and slash of the sword brings him to face her and he startles slightly before assuming a nonchalant pose.  “Good day, my lady.”

“Good day, Sir Gaston.  You’re looking well,” she offers, because it’s not untrue.

The left corner of his mouth curls up.  “Am I?  How very kind of you to say.  I... wish I could return the compliment, but you seem downcast.”

Belle’s congenial air withers as her sorrow returns.  “Yes, well, I’m sure you’ve heard the gossip about Master Baelfire.”

Gaston nods gravely, “I had.  That poor child.  Even if it’s not the black throat, this is a delicate time for him to be ill.”

Belle’s sorrow gains a layer of weariness as she rubs at her forehead.  “That is very true.  Just now I had the whole high council grabbing at the governorship like wild dogs going at the same bone.”  She stops, presses her lips shut.  Gaston should not know that.

He simply gives a look of disgust.  “The greedy rogues, after all Lord Maurice has done for them.  A knight like myself is nothing without our loyalty.”

Belle hums, “You would show your loyalty very well if you stopped suspecting the husband Lord Maurice chose for me of hideous crimes.”

His eye slips closed and his free hand rises to his chest.  “I apologize for my haste in broaching the subject.  A full investigation is of course required in order to draw firm conclusions.”

“Yes,” Belle agrees flatly, hoping he’ll drop the subject.

But of course, that’s not the kind of luck she has today.  “I don’t suppose you’d like to hear the newest developments.”

Perhaps if she allows today to get as bad as it can get, tomorrow will be better.  “What is it, Sir Gaston?”

“The day Master Baelfire fell ill, that ogre-esque foreman in the mill was sent off in a schooner without a word to anyone.  Do you know what he carried with him?”

“What?”

“A chest of gold.  What could Master Chrysos possibly spend so very much on, especially when your marriage was meant to tie his wealth to the benefit of Collioure forever?”

Belle just manages to stop herself from pressing her teeth into her lower lip.  “I suppose I can ask,” she replies lightly, “I’ll let you know what my husband says.”

“Please do, my lady.  I’m very curious to hear it.”  Sir Gaston performs a short bow, and leaves the courtyard.

Once he’s gone Belle sucks her lip into her mouth and grinds it between her teeth.  A matter of business- that’s what called Rumpelstiltskin away mere minutes after seeing Baelfire in his sickbed.  In the moment it shocked Belle, that anything could be more important to him than staying by his son’s side.  Now she knows it was expensive as well, and could only be trusted to Rumpelstiltskin’s right hand Peristeri.  And she can’t imagine what it was.

Her gaze drops to her book and she sighs, knowing her worries have barred any escape into a fantasy world.  She climbs to her feet and heads back indoors.  At least she can claim sanctuary for a little while in her chambers.  This is her hope until she rounds a corner and finds Reynaud bearing down on her.

She turns the instinct to whip around and run away into a curtsey.  “Cleric Reynaud.”

“My lady,” he replies with a nod, “In our meeting I forgot to mention something of the utmost importance.”

 _More important than usurping Baelfire’s title?_ Belle does not say.  “Yes?”

“Midsummer is fast approaching, and I must warn you, if Vinaos and Umera are not shown equal deference as Olene, the consequences could be dire.”

“Vinaos and Umera... You mean the midsummer festival?  With the...” she gulps, “The costumes?”

“The very one!  Obviously it would be ideal to have the governor and his wife take their ordained roles in the festival, but as that is not possible, the duty falls to you and your husband.”

“No.  No, no, we can’t.  That’s not-”

“I’m afraid refusal is quite out of the question, my lady.  The gods must be appeased.  You will explain it to Master Chrysos, will you not?”

“I, um, well, I suppose I could...”

A smile of relief breaks onto his face.  “Very good, my lady, very good.  I’m certain it will be a fine festival.  Good day to you.”

He sails off, and all Belle can do is close her eyes and wish she was living another life.


	13. Chapter 13

The ache in Rumpelstiltskin’s hands goes so deep he ponders sleeping in his suit on his way back to the castle.  Another long day alone at his loom, but once the cloaks are shaped and sewn, King Stefan’s order will finally be complete.  And not a moment too soon.  His free hand dips into a pocket to clasp  the message from Peristeri he received this morning.  The makers of the squid tentacle medicine demand two more full chests for their product.  Gods above, Rumpelstiltskin paid less for the building that housed his first mill.  He will pay it, but he barely dares to calculate the toll on his wealth, and what he’s worth to Belle- to Collioure without it.

No matter.  King Stefan will pay, and more orders for simpler items will be filled when the new mill is running.  The gold will be replaced.  This is a minor setback.  No one must know.

Rumpelstiltskin’s thoughts distracted him so on his walk through the castle that his awareness comes crashing back in twin bolts of guilt and fear when he comes to the door of Bae’s sickroom.  That he could stop thinking of his boy for even a second- what is he becoming?  But, it’s all for Bae.  It always has been.  It always will be.  He takes a breath, and pushes open the door.

His next breath escapes in a short gasp when he sees the head healer Girard standing at the foot of Bae’s bed.  Icy dread grips his heart as he forces himself to step inside.  It barely loosens as the other man smiles- he is kind, it could be all he can do to soften the coming blow.

“Master Chrysos, I wanted to give you the news myself.”

“Yes?”

“Your son has showed no clear symptoms of black throat in nearly two weeks.  I feel confident in saying his illness is not serious, and he should recover soon.”

The icy grip releases so suddenly Rumpelstiltskin worries his heart might burst.  He clasps a hand over the thudding organ and leans heavily on his cane.  Girard steps forward swiftly, laying a steadying hand on his arm.  “I- I am well,” Rumpelstiltskin gasps, “Just- I just...”

“Breathe deeply,” Girard instructs, “It is a great joy to know our heir isn’t in danger, though he will need some time to regain his strength.  He’ll likely be up and about by the midsummer festival.  He can be leader of the star children.”

Confusion breaks Rumpelstiltskin out of his attack of relief until he manages to cast his memory back to the two midsummers he and Bae spent in Collioure.  “Right, yes, the festival.  For the sun and moon.”

He worked through the first one, desperate to spin enough thread to sell so they wouldn’t starve for daring to leave the Frontlands.  During the second he ventured out into the crowd, and ignored the frivolities going on around him as he took coin and pressed spools into every reaching hand.

“Have you had a fitting yet?”

“Sorry?”

“You’ll certainly need one if you’re to wear Lord Maurice’s costume.  But I’m certain Lady Belle will see to it.  Ah, speaking of.”

Girard peers around Rumpelstiltskin, who turns to see the chamber door open to admit a maid and Belle.  Her face is as pale and drawn with worry as his surely was a moment ago, and it drives him to reach for her hand and say, “Bae will be all right.  It’s not black throat.”  
  
Belle’s hand clenches in his as her eyes immediately shine and a smile dawns on her face.  “Oh!  Oh, that’s wonderful.  Thank the gods.  He- he is still sleeping?”

Rumpelstiltskin curses himself again.  Here he is wondering about costumes and star children when he should be checking on Bae.  He and Belle look to the sickbed where the boy is indeed slumbering peacefully.

“The most severe symptom of his illness is fatigue,” Girard explains, “But he is improving.”

“And his cough?” Belle asks, as Rumpelstiltskin damn well should have.

“Dry, not as we’ve seen with black throat.  The body aches also point away from it.”

“Wonderful.  You and your fellow healers have all my gratitude.”

“It’s our privilege.  If only we could always deliver such happy news.”

A shadow passes over Belle’s face, no doubt tied to thoughts of her father.  Rumpelstiltskin resolves to send the payment for the medicine at first light.  If he can use it to save Maurice, it would be a perfect belated wedding present.

Girard soon ushers them from the room so Bae can continue to rest, then takes his leave.  Silence descends between Belle and Rumpelstiltskin.  This is when he realizes he’s been grasping Belle’s hand for an age and lets go to step away.  Her fingers curl before she tucks her hand against her midsection. 

“A fine end to the day,” he remarks.

“Yes, very fine.”

“Girard said Bae should be well by the midsummer festival.”

“I see.  Oh!  Yes, the festival.”

He raises an eyebrow.  “Girard also mentioned something about a fitting?  For a costume?”

Belle’s eyes close briefly in a look of pure exhaustion.  “Gods, yes, all of that.  I tried to put Reynaud off it but he insisted.  I know it’s late, but if you have time I can explain it.”

She looks like she’d rather do anything but, so Rumpelstiltskin says, “Well, I was going to see if Lord Maurice was awake.  There’s something I need to discuss with him.  I can ask about the festival while I’m there.”

“I can go with you, I’ve not delivered his reports today.”

“No!”  She can’t know of his plans, not yet.  “That is, I just need to speak with him about a...”

“A matter of business?”

“Yes.  It is pressing though.  Perhaps the reports can wait one day?  The both of us going- it might be a little overtaxing.”

She should tell him off immediately for his presumption.  She should snarl in his face, stamp on his foot, kick his cane out and spit on his crumpled form.  Instead, she just looks at him like he’s a particularly grotesque insect on the bottom of her shoe.  “All right,” she says, “Give him my love, if he’s awake.”

“Of course.”

“Good evening.”  She dips into a curtsey.  He bows, and by the time he’s straightened, she’s turned her back and walked away.

He’ll make it up to her.  He will.  Very soon.  But not yet.  He goes to Maurice’s chambers and learns from the healer outside that Girard is with him.  Once the head healer leaves, he’s permitted a brief audience.  He dons a mask and makes his way to Maurice’s bed.

Every breath from the lord of Collioure is a wet gasp, and his throat is mottled with every dark shade.  Rumpelstiltskin suppresses the urge to rub his own throat in sympathy.  When Maurice’s sunken eyes eventually focus on him, he crouches to murmur, “My lord, I won’t keep you awake for long.”

Perhaps Maurice might have had a quip for that, before.  Now, he just blinks.

“In the Crescent Islands there is a kind of medicine that restores damaged flesh.  It is very rare and powerful.  I sent Peristeri to purchase some when it was thought Bae might have caught black throat.  He will be well, but I thought to get the medicine anyway, for you.”

All this time Maurice has been admirably calm in the face of his grim fate.  To see naked, childlike hope fill his eyes breaks Rumpelstiltskin’s heart.  If the medicine can’t be obtained, or doesn’t work- this is why he can’t tell Belle.  “Please,” he whispers, almost gurgles, “Haven’t got long now.  Want to live.”

“Yes.  Yes, of course.  Consider it done, my lord.  It... It will be an expense, a large one.  But more than worth it to see you well.”

“Thank you.”  He swallows with a terrible grimace and shudder, and makes an attempt to sit up slightly.  “Our Baelfire is to recover?”

“He is,” Rumpelstiltskin responds, guilty at the relief he can’t hide in his voice.

“Good.  Wouldn’t wish this plague on an ogre.”  He considers.  “Perhaps an ogre.”

“I wouldn’t blame you.  Ah, Belle sends her love.”  Rumpelstiltskin can at least do this much for her, if he disappoints her in every other way.

Unfortunately, his words only bring another grimace to Maurice’s face.  “My poor girl.  Can’t bear for her see me like this.”

“I think she’d be glad enough just to speak with you, while she can.  No matter what.”

He gives a tiny, tired nod.  “Anyway, she’ll be busy with the festival.”

Rumpelstiltskin jumps at the needed shift in conversation.  “Yes, the festival.  I gather I’m to take part.”

Maurice peers at him, and lets out a rasping snigger.  Rumpelstiltskin’s stomach sinks.  It does not rise again as Maurice slowly explains the rites and duties of the midsummer festival dedicated to the glory of the sun god Vinaos and the moon goddess Umera.


	14. Chapter 14

“This is very uncomfortable.”

Belle snorts from behind the changing screen set up in a meditation chamber of the temple.  “You’re uncomfortable?  Really?” she inquires, then steps out into view.

Beneath the large gilded crown perched precariously on his head, Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes widen as he takes her in.  The net of silver chain and crystals that tugs at her hair would be bad enough.  But she also has to contend with the sack of sand hanging at belly-height from her shoulders to mimic a massive pregnancy.  The only comfortable thing about the Umera costume is the deep purple robe that swathes her body, leaving her arms bare.  Rumpelstiltskin wears a similar garment, though his is of course a shimmering gold.

“I was wrong,” he mutters, ducking his head only for the crown to teeter off just slowly enough for him to catch, and flinch as a spoke of dawning sunlight jabs his palm.

With a sigh Belle chooses to take pity on him, waddling forward to loop her arm with his and ask, “Shall we meet our children?”

“Um, yes, I suppose,” he replies, cheeks darkening and head twitching down again before he remembers to keep it held stiffly high to balance the crown.

They leave the chamber and enter the main room of the temple.  This usually serene place of pale marble is now filled with nearly twenty young children running, playing, screaming, fighting, crying, and poking at things they shouldn’t.  Each of them wears a silver or golden star tied to their chests with twine.  Parents, relatives, and siblings hover among the horde, trying to stem the chaos with little success.

Belle and Rumpelstiltskin pick their way over to Baelfire, who sits against a wall with his arms crossed on his tucked-up knees.  The largest and most ornate star lies on the floor beside him.  He fixes a sullen look on his father and stepmother.  “Belle, is this for babies?”

She stifles a laugh with a sympathetic smile.  “It’s meant for all children of Collioure... at the first midsummer they’re old enough to walk and wear a star.”

“So, babies!”

“Baelfire...” Rumpelstiltskin warns, sounding tired.

“I know this isn’t how you’d like to spend the festival,” Belle continues gently, “But it’s just for the beginning, then you can do whatever you want.  And anyway, it’s important for you to take part in our traditions, so you can understand us and we can accept you.  Can you do that?”

He sighs, but picks up the star and slips his arms through the twine loops.  “I will.”

“Thank you,” Belle says, feeling warmth glow in her heart for the boy while she tries not to think of the children who aren’t here to carry a star.

They wait together until Reynaud bustles in, coming to Belle and Rumpelstiltskin and sweeping into a deep bow.  “Vinaos and Umera, you have my humblest greetings on this fine day.”

Rumpelstiltskin blinks in confusion while Belle nods regally.  “We are pleased to attend the festival.  Take us to our waiting worshipers.”

She glances at Rumpelstiltskin, who schools his face into smooth detachment, and they proceed together out of the temple to stand at its entrance before the gathered villagers.  The sun is bright in a cloudless sky and everyone squints to avoid searing their vision on the glare of Vinaos’ gleaming crown and Umera’s glittering headdress.

Reynaud steps forward, arms raised high to announce, “Greetings, my friends, on this glorious day of midsummer!”  He continues over the villagers’ cheering, “We are honored by the presence of the resplendent Vinaos and his wife the luminous Umera, descended from their respective celestial spheres to bless our village with health and prosperity.”

More cheers as Belle waves, and nudges Rumpelstiltskin to do the same. 

“Had I any doubts of their favor, they would have vanished upon learning that the heir to our governorship has recovered from his illness, and can now stand before you, reborn as a true son of Collioure, and the leader of the star children!”

Reynaud gestures back to the doors of the temple, through which Baelfire strides, followed and quickly surpassed by his allegorical siblings who run in a screaming, giggling, bellowing stream from the temple and out into the road in the direction of the town square.  The villagers smile and cheer some more and also make their way to the square.  Baelfire hangs back to walk with Rumpelstiltskin, Belle, and Reynaud.

“Not so bad, eh?” Rumpelstiltskin asks, bumping his son’s shoulder only enough to avoid jostling the crown.

“It was fine,” Baelfire replies with a small smile.

The square is festooned with flowers wherever they can be set down or tied.  Tables of food line three sides, leaving the last for a band of musicians who strike up a tune as soon as Belle and Rumpelstiltskin arrive.  They go to a mercifully tented area in a corner and where two chairs wait for them.

Belle grunts as she sits and the sack thuds against her stomach.  She runs a hand along its curve, smoothing her purple robe over it.  She reminds herself how relieved she was when she knew she wouldn’t be a brood mare to her future husband.  She’s still relieved.  That was never what she wanted in life.  But... her gaze wanders over to Rumpelstiltskin... perhaps it wouldn’t have been so bad.

She shakes away the thought.  Rumpelstiltskin married her to give Baelfire a title.  He got what he wanted.  Of course he wouldn’t want anything more.  At least, nothing more to do with her.  She might have thought they were progressing toward a kind of friendship before Baelfire’s illness.  But now she knows he’s hiding things, sending Peristeri on secret jobs and holding at least one mysterious late-night meeting with her father.

There’s nothing for it.  She can’t trust Rumpelstiltskin if he won’t talk to her, and without trust she can’t be his friend.  And being anything more than his friend is thoroughly out of the question, no matter how toned and smooth his arms look in his golden robe.

“Here, Belle, I made you a plate!” Baelfire chirps, kindly shattering her musings before they could become any more inappropriate.  She takes the plate filled with seasoned fish filets, sliced fruit, and cake with a grateful smile.  “Do you want one, Papa?”

“Yes, thank you, son,” Rumpelstiltskin responds.  Baelfire trots away and his gaze falls to his cane, giving it a small thump on the ground.  “It’s a good thing I chose the gold handle when I got this.  How unfortunate if it had been silver.”  
  
“Well, you could’ve said it was a gift from me,” Belle says, giving her silver-laden hair a slight toss.  Rumpelstiltskin turns a grin on her, and she has to remind herself all over again of her mistrust.  He’s just too easy to talk to, when he lets her.  She looks away, focuses on her meal.

Too soon though she hears the strains of a certain tune on the air.  While putting together the festival she requested it of the musicians in a moment of hope mixed with sensibility.  Of course Umera and Vinaos would have to dance- she can only imagine what the gossips would whisper if they don’t.  And why not stick to a dance she’s sure Rumpelstiltskin knows?  Their dance.

And so she shyly looks to him, noting how he’s gone a little stiff in his seat.  “We, um, we need to dance.  It’s part of the ceremony.”

“Yes.  Of course it is.”

Her bravery falters and she inhales a breath to say he doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to, only to swallow the words as he reaches his free hand to her with a somewhat tight smile.

Belle smiles as well around a bitten lip and takes the offered hand, walking with Rumpelstiltskin to the middle of the town square.  “A right step forward then a left to begin,” she murmurs.

“I remember.”

They step together smoothly on the next beat, and the following spin is awkward between the false belly hanging off Belle and the crown keeping Rumpelstiltskin from raising his arm very high.  Still, no tragedy befalls them, and she proceeds to glide in a circle around him, beaming at the crowd as she goes.  As she completes the circle and leans back into Rumpelstiltskin’s arms, the crowd might cheer- she’s a little distracted by deep brown eyes gazing into hers.

Five years ago, this was the moment she felt her heart thrum in a way it never had before.  She’d thought Rumpelstiltskin was handsome and good company from the beginning, but as they danced it seemed their layers fell away, and she found something incredibly rare and precious.

She wants to find it again, more than words can say.  Her heart is certainly thrumming as before when she straightens and they begin the dance again.  But she can’t pretend he isn’t keeping her at a distance, even as their fingers twine.  If she could just get him to talk to her, perhaps they could start again.  That is, start again a second time.  A third time?

She spins and asks, “Progress is continuing on the mill?”

Rumpelstiltskin steps back to lead her into the circle.  “Yes.  By next month, it should be ready.”

As she leans into his arms, she remarks, “Peristeri must be pleased.”

On her way to stand at his side again, she spots the shadow passing over his face.  “Yes, though he is away at the moment.  He needed to return to the islands.  Family business.”

It’s a clever feint.  Too vague to be an obvious lie while suggesting a delicate matter Belle shouldn’t pry into.  She can’t even be totally sure whose family he’s talking about.  She opts for a bland response, “I hope it’s nothing serious.”

“We shall see.  I had a letter from him recently.  He’ll not be gone very long.”

Silence descends.  The matter is closed.  Rumpelstiltskin has won this battle.  They continue dancing, though Belle has stopped smiling.  A thought occurs to her that’s not another conversational gambit, but something she does need to speak with him about.  “We must arrange a meeting with the castle chamberlain.  I’d like to get a firm idea of where our finances stand before the mill opens.”

Rumpelstiltskin drops her hand just as she leans back and she nearly falls flat if not for his right forearm coming up beneath her.  “No, sorry, I mean...” he babbles, those deep brown eyes turned sharp with alarm, “That is, I...”  The last notes of the song float to them, and before they’ve even faded he’s stepped away, “I need to see to something.  I will return.”

With no further explanation he spins on his heel, free hand steadying Vinaos’ crown as he walks away.  Belle stares at his back in utter bafflement, and marches after him, doing her best to ignore the slit-eyed stares of the gossips.  It’s Olene’s day all over again.  But this time she won’t accept her humiliation at his hands.

Walking quickly is made awkward by the false belly swaying against her hips as he stalks down a side street.  Eventually she must call out, “Wait!  Rumpelstiltskin, wait.”

And he does, though his shoulders draw up in a tense line.

“When will we meet with the chamberlain?”

He turns with his mouth twisted in a sickly smile.  “I can do that.  You needn’t bother.”

“I disagree.  And even if it wasn’t needed, I want to.”

“You’ll find it very boring, I’m sure.”

His attempt at a light comment brings a stormy frown to Belle’s face.  “You think I’ll be bored by something so important to the survival of my village?  What kind of person do you think I am?  Do you imagine I think this is some kind of game?  Just an amusement that doesn’t affect the lives of everyone in Collioure?”

“No!  Not at all,” he insists, smile fading into a look of desperation, “I- I don’t know what to say.”  
  
“You never say anything!” Belle cries before pressing her lips together and forcing herself to take an even breath.  “You don’t talk to me.  And I don’t understand _why_.”

His shoulders fall with a sigh.  “You’re right.  I’m sorry.  I...  I’ve learned not to share things.  In my experience, it’s best to deal with them alone, whenever possible.”

“That’s not true.  What could make you think that?”

Discomfort fills his face as he glances around, as if concerned at being overheard.  Belle moves forward and ushers him into a doorway, seating them both on the stoop leading up to it.  She glimpses the street dust smeared on the rich purple of her robe and imagines they must make an odd sight- two gods sitting together in an alley.  She pushes the thought away and focuses on Rumpelstiltskin, giving him a soft smile, hoping it’s enough encouragement to draw some truth from him.

After carefully removing the crown and setting it beside him, he twists his hands around his cane, and speaks, “When a man arrives in a town carrying a chest full of gold and not much else, he gets noticed.  And not by the best sort of people- though that’s exactly what they pretend to be.  I met a man shortly after coming to the Crescent Islands, a man called Zoso.”

A hot shiver shoots through Belle’s stomach.  The business partner.  The man Gaston claimed was Rumpelstiltskin’s tutor in wickedness.

“I thought myself very lucky.  He helped Bae and I establish ourselves, seemingly for no reason but to do a good deed for two newcomers.  He suggested expanding my trade, opening my first mill.  He had connections to start selling our wares all over the islands.  Naturally I made him my partner, and every day I was so grateful to him.  He was like the brother I never had.”

“Until...”

Rumpelstiltskin casts a long, bleak gaze down the street as he continues, “It was a short time after I brought Peristeri on as foreman.  That’s when he told me what Zoso was up to.  He was terrorizing our workers.  Berating them for the smallest flaws, making... improper comments to the women, and punishing them all for the slightest infractions by garnishing their wages.  He would, of course, keep that money for himself.  And I had no idea about any of it.  Couldn’t speak to the workers without his translation, couldn’t- or, didn’t want to see their misery when it seemed our business was doing so well.  Once my eyes were opened, I asked him to leave.  Told him if he went quietly, I wouldn’t inform the guard.  And he did leave.  But he didn’t stay quiet.”

“What did he do?”

Rumpelstiltskin’s gaze has fallen to his feet as he picks at his golden robe.  “You know the name I was given on the islands.  Tsepi Chrysos.”

“Pocket gold.”

A bitter smile glances over his face.  “It’s an insult.  Zoso told my story to anyone who would listen.  He told them my riches came from a random twist of fate, without which I’d still be a crippled old spinner in a filthy hovel struggling to feed my son.”

“You were chosen by Etmes,” Belle states, “That was not random.”

The smile returns, pained instead of bitter.  “Etmes is not known on the islands.  I might as well have stumbled on the chest in the street.  It’s not a tale that inspires much respect among merchants, even though I’d built my trade amongst them.  Anyway, it took time, and a great deal of work, but I recovered from the damage.  It even pushed me to find trade outside of the islands, which left me in better stead than I was before.  All thanks to Zoso, that godsdamned beast.”

Belle digests this for a silent moment.  “Right, I see.  I think I would also be wary of who I trusted, after something like that.  But, Rumpel...”  She reaches out a hand to cover his.  “I’m not Zoso.  I have no reason to wish you any harm.  By helping you, I help myself.  I would think that’s what a marriage should be, at the core of it.”

His face only gains a new shade of pain.  “Yes, well, perhaps you remember what I told you of my first marriage, and how that ended.”

Belle withdraws her hand.  She hadn’t exactly forgotten, she just hadn’t fully considered what it would mean to Rumpelstiltskin- marrying again after being abandoned by his first wife.  It strikes her as incredibly brave of him to even try, despite their marriage being just a business arrangement.  “I’m not Zoso,” she reiterates, “And I’m not your first wife.  I’m not going anywhere.  And your success is my success.  So, tell me what’s troubling you.  I’m sure there’s something.  I want to know, so I can help.”

Rumpelstiltskin’s smile does manage to soften then, even warm some.  “I know that.  I’ve always known.  You help people, no matter who they are, even a lowly spinner caught up in a mad ritual for a god he’s never heard of.  That’s what you do.  There’s no one quite like you, Belle.”

Heat rushes to her cheeks at the compliment.  Rumpelstiltskin’s hand rises and her heart skips, but he just claps it in his other palm and squeezes.  She swallows against a suddenly dry throat and says, “Then let me do what I do.  Talk to me.”

The warmth dims as he swallows as well.  “Yes, I...  I will.  I swear I will.  But can you please just... wait until Peristeri returns?”

Belle blinks, “Why?  I don’t understand.”

“I know.  But you will, I promise.  I’ll explain everything.  I just need a little more time.  Please.”

She can hardly say no while floating in the depths of his bottomless eyes.  “A-all right.  I’ll wait.”

His smile emulates the dawning sun better than the crown does.  His fingers graze her upper arm, sending sweet shivers through her whole body.  “Thank you.  I’m not sure how you’re still managing to put up with me.  I’d have thought one day and night would be enough.”

Belle squints at him.  “Not nearly.  If you’d lived in Collioure every day of these past five years it wouldn’t have been enough.  I’ve so miss-”

“My most radiant divinities!”

They jerk upright from where they’ve bent together sheer inches apart.  Rumpelstiltskin grabs the crown and shoves it back on his head and Belle pats at her headdress as Reynaud strides toward them.  He gathers them up with all the clucks of a solicitous mother hen and returns them to the festival.


	15. Chapter 15

After Bae has eaten his fill from the banquet table, danced up a storm, and stolen Vinaos’ crown to parade through the square with a sweetly wicked grin, he plops down at Rumpelstiltskin’s side and asks, “Are you tired?”

Rumpelstiltskin hasn’t left the chair under the tent since returning from his conversation with Belle, but he notices how Bae gulps his breaths and leans heavily against his father’s shoulder.  “Exhausted,” he replies, “Let’s go to our chambers.”

Bae stands and moves in front of Rumpelstiltskin to extend a steadying arm for him to grasp on his way up- a habit trained into the boy since he was strong enough to do so.  He barely seems aware of it as he focuses on Belle, “The festival was really fun.”

She smiles affectionately.  “I’m glad you think so.  The one for Etmes is a couple of months way.  We can talk about it when we meet tomorrow.”

Bae’s grin shines with excitement, “Can there be games this year?”

“I don’t see why not.  Maybe we can come up with some of our own.”

“We should!  But Papa’s tired now, so we need to rest.”

“Indeed.  Good night to you both.”

Do her eyes seem to carry a deep warmth when they move to Rumpelstiltskin?  Part of him is still reeling slightly from what he said, what she said, and what he managed not to say earlier.  He gave up an old secret to hide the new, but he’s not as glad about it as he’d like to be.

Once he’s got the medicine, once Maurice is cured, Rumpelstiltskin vows to do as Belle so plainly and so kindly requested.  He can talk to her.  She can help him, that’s been true since the moment they met.  He just needs to be brave enough to let her.  While hardly ever being physically alone, there is a kind of loneliness he knows quite well- after he fell from Milah’s favor, he’s never had a true ally.  Peristeri comes close, but his position as Rumpelstiltskin’s foreman keeps them from being entirely equal.  Of course, Rumpelstiltskin is no equal to Belle, but it seems she’s willing to stoop.  It’s an interesting thought that accompanies him on the way back to the temple to change out of his costume, Bae following at his side.

Rumpelstiltskin is sure to return the hails of the few staggering revelers they pass.  It’s been interesting to act as the personification of Vinaos on Earth, he hopes he did it right, but he feels ready to rest now.  He enters the temple with Bae and heads for the small room where he and Belle left their clothes.  With a grateful sigh he takes off the crown and sets it on a table for the last time- his neck will be feeling the weight of that thing tomorrow. 

He’s sorting out just how to get the voluminous golden robe off when he hears Bae call from the temple’s main room, “Hey, Papa?”

“Yes?”

“Where did you and Belle go during the feast, after you danced?”

The slick fabric slips from his fingers.  “Ah, well, we uh,” he replies eloquently, “We just needed to talk about some things.  That’s all.”

“Oh,” he hears before tugging the robe over his head.

Something in Bae’s tone has him straightening up once free and asking, “What did you think we were doing?”

“Well... there were some ladies who said you were probably making up for lost time since the wedding.  And, um, something about putting more stars in the sky.  I think they might’ve been talking about kiss-”

“Yes!” Rumpelstiltskin cries, “I- I think I get the gist.  And _no_ , that is most definitely _not_ what we were doing.”

“Really?  Because, I mean, you said you wanted to marry Belle, and you did.  People usually get married when they want to kiss each other and- and all that, right?”

Rumpelstiltskin scrubs a hand over his face while reaching for his shirt.  “People get married for lots of reasons, Bae.  Belle married me so that our mill could help Collioure, you know that.”

“So, that’s the only reason.”

“Of course it is.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” he states, even as a tiny part of his brain wonders if he truly is.  It did seem, before Reynaud showed up...  But no, Belle was just trying to help him, as she said.  He wouldn’t dare insult her by reading any further into it.  He’s immeasurably lucky to get that much from her.  Though, she did want to kiss him once.  The aching memory surges in his mind and there isn’t much he wouldn’t give in this moment to pull Belle into his arms again, if only once more.  Within this moment, he allows himself to think that perhaps he might get to, someday.  After he gets the medicine.  After he cures Maurice.  Always after.

He shoves away his pointless frustration and finishes dressing.  Then he and Bae return to the castle.  Though he does mean to look into fully separate chambers for Bae, his ingrained need to keep his son close has only gotten stronger since being separated by the quarantine.  He likes to think Bae doesn’t mind having his father nearby as well.  It’s just too quiet, the rooms too large and still, without any other life in them.  There’s too much of the peasant in them both.

He indulges himself further this evening by tucking the covers up around Bae when the boy has changed into his nightclothes and clambered into bed.  He is rewarded with a tolerant smile and a soft, “Love you, Papa.”

“I love you too, Bae.”

Rumpelstiltskin settles in his bed, and reads for a while before putting out his candle.  He quickly slips into a vague dream of moving through a crowd, catching glimpses of Belle while never quite able to reach her.  She finally looks his way when he resorts to calling her name- just at the instant the dream ends and his eyes open on the soft light of dawn.  The details blur immediately even as he tries to grasp them.  Did Belle smile when she saw him?  Or was that a frown?  Or a scream?  He can’t recall and so lets the dream fade as he prepares for the day.

In the mill, he and the most expert tinker brought to install the mechanical looms go over every inch of every one, confirming all is in place and ready to work.  By early evening Rumpelstiltskin is satisfied, though he wants Peristeri to give his own approval before they start looking for new hires.  As if summoned by the thought, a messenger arrives with a note from the islands.

The medicine is being made.  Soon Peristeri will set off on his return to Collioure.  He could be boarding the boat this very hour.  According to its makers, the medicine’s potency will lessen every second it goes unused, so Peristeri will run it from the dock to Maurice’s chambers as soon as he arrives.  Rumpelstiltskin must be prepared.

He reads the note again.  And again.  His insides flutter each time.  Almost.  Almost.  The medicine is almost ready.  Peristeri is almost here.  Maurice is almost cured.  It will happen as fast as humanly possible once Peristeri’s feet hit the dock.  Rumpelstiltskin is unspeakably glad of this.  Glad to his soul not wait a second longer than necessary.  The rush is so powerful he’s nearly breathless and he knows that he must tell Belle.  He wants her beside him when the medicine comes, when her father is restored to her.  He needs her there.

He marches from the mill, going directly to the castle and asking the first maid he finds, “Do you know where Lady Belle is?  I need to speak with her urgently.”

“I believe she is in the courtyard, sir.  Reading.”

He grins.  Of course that’s what she’s doing.  His Belle and her books.  She’ll have so much more time for them when Maurice is healthy.  Perhaps Rumpelstiltskin could read with her, on the grass beneath the late summer sun.  His heart thumps at the cozy image, but he must set it aside for now and focus on his mission.

When he’s nearing the courtyard, Belle comes into view around a corner.  She spots him and he smiles wide.

She doesn’t smile.  Her face is dark with fury.


	16. Chapter 16

As Belle approaches Maurice’s chambers with the daily reports, she doesn’t see a healer stationed outside.  A little lost for what to do, she pauses at the door, considers knocking.  Tilting her head closer, she can just make out the sounds of at least two people moving and talking quietly, along with something she realizes is a gurgling retch.  Her stomach lurches and her heart seizes and she must stumble backward when the door opens and a healer steps out.

“Is- is he- all right?” Belle forces herself to ask through a tightening throat.

“We’re doing what we can for him,” the healer replies.  No more sweet words about resting, that this is just a bad day, that he’ll be better by tomorrow.  Belle could crumble to the floor right now.  Her gaze drops, and she sees a smear of some black-brown-red fluid on the healer’s apron.  Horror makes the world tilt around her and she reels and flees down the hall, reports clasped to over her breaking heart like a compress.

Black throat took her mother in less than a week.  It felt as shocking and sudden as a stabbing, and the wound left behind still oozes pain into Belle whenever her thoughts stray to it.  But was that sharp anguish better, she wonders, than the inch-by-inch impalement of her father’s long suffering?  She curses herself for even contemplating a world where Maurice died fast.  Then the anger turns outward as she curses this world in which she must experience both paths of agony.  And then it all withers into pure exhaustion, and the cycle she has endured so many times before comes to a close, leaving her a little more faded and frail.

Aching once again for any kind of escape, she drops the reports in her chamber, grabs a random book from her collection and heads for the courtyard.  The air is still today, and even in the shade of the trees this close to dusk it feels like a blanket wrapped around her body.  Belle stolidly opens the book and drags her eyes along the page.  It’s Enzo’s study of the Crescent Islands, she notes with a flicker of a smile.  One of her favorites.  She should lend it to Rumpelstiltskin, if he’s interested.  She should... she should also talk to him about the cancerous grief in her heart.  She told him to share his troubles with her- wouldn’t it be poor manners to hide her own?

These thoughts scatter at the sound of footsteps stomping toward her.  Gaston ducks beneath a tree branch, greeting her with a somber nod.  “Good day, my lady.  I’m glad to find you here.”

 _That makes one of us._   “Good day.”

He takes a knee before her, and she does her best not to flinch from the up-close view of his marred face.  “There has been a development I must inform you of.”

A weak groan escapes Belle as her head tilts back and her eyes fall shut.  “Please, Sir Gaston, not today.  My father is extremely ill, and I just-”

“That is exactly why I need to tell you.  You _must_ be prepared.”

He won’t be swayed.  If Belle knows anything about Gaston, she knows that.  “Prepared for what?”

“I am all but certain Master Chrysos will usurp the governorship after Lord Maurice’s passing.”

“Really?  How awful,” Belle deadpans.

“Please be serious, my lady.  He is not the generous benefactor he seems.  Do you know how he became so very rich?  It certainly wasn’t by selling thread.”

“Then what?  Is he a hired assassin?”

Gaston’s face only becomes grimmer.  “Funny you should mention that.”

Belle rolls her eyes.  “This is ridiculous, Sir Gaston.  Say what you came to say or leave.”

“I mean no offense, only that any assassin would be proud to own a certain item made and sold exclusively by Master Chrysos of the Crescent Islands.  It’s a cloak, designed to conceal a man almost completely in a variety of settings.  He’s sold them across the realms, to anyone who paid his price.  Assassins, spies, rebels, thieves- anyone who wishes to go unseen, to do dark deeds.  The gods alone know what horrors have been accomplished with Chrysos’ cloaks.”

Even in the summer swelter, a frigid chill rolls through Belle.  She mumbles in a mouse’s voice, “He wouldn’t do that.”

“No?  Cloaks are being made in the new mill as we speak.  Ask the foreman, after he returns from completing Chrysos’ secret order.  Oh, and in case he hasn’t told you, it involves two more chests of gold.”

Three chests, all brimming with coins meant for Collioure, gone for some unknown purpose.  Any warm and fluttery hope she might have kindled during the midsummer festival shrivels to a husk.  Rumpelstiltskin spun her that sob story about Zoso, and smoothly distracted her from getting the truth she needs.  And now this.  Her eyes burn with tears.  Desperate to hide her distress from Gaston, she turns away and blinks rapidly, schooling her face into a stone mask.  “I will address this with him.  Thank you for telling me, Sir Gaston.”

“Be quick about it, my lady.  We have no idea what a man like this is capable of.  I mean, think about it.  The _second_ he got his gold from Etmes, he left.  Clearly Collioure was of no more use to him.  He liked his chances of accumulating power better in the Crescent Islands.  Gods know wealth trumps law there.  And now, here?  Where our governor is dying and the heir is yet to come of age?  Really, what’s to stop him from taking over, and enslaving our villagers to his mill?”

“ _Me!_ ” Belle snaps, glaring into Gaston’s eye.

His face simply softens into a pitying smile.  “You?  What could you do?  You carry Lord Maurice’s reports from his office to his sickbed.  If- _when_ he dies before Master Baelfire is old enough to become governor, what exactly is your role?  You are Master Chrysos’ wife.  That’s all.”

“ _No_ ,” Belle snarls, even as Gaston parrots her bleakest thoughts back at her, “That is _not_ all I am.  And Master Chrysos will know it.  Excuse me.”

She shoots to her feet, abandoning the Enzo as she storms from the courtyard, all the rage she’s ever felt since the war began focused on one point: her husband.


	17. Chapter 17

Rumpelstiltskin has many dark memories of Milah’s anger, but she was never quite as incandescent as Belle is now.

“Hello, husband,” she sneers through clenched teeth.

He swallows.  Ponders turning tail and running.  Instead lifts his chin to give a slight nod and a cordial, “Good day, Belle.”

“Is it?” she snaps, “My father is in his chambers _dying_.  It’s not been a good day for me in a long time.”

He snatches this glimmer of luck, hoping to soften Belle’s sudden fury with his news, “Yes, I know, but I wanted to tell y-”

“ _Meanwhile_ ,” she interrupts, “You’re already hard at work in the mill.  You’re making something.  Something very special.  Unique, perhaps.  Why don’t you tell me about it?”

Her tone is poisonously pleasant.  Dread grips Rumpelstiltskin’s heart.  “We- or, I make cloaks.  They _are_ special.  If there are any like them, I’ve not seen it.  Their design is concealing.  Excellent for hunting, or-”

“Or assassination?”

He blinks, and stares at Belle’s tense form.  He can think of nothing to say but, “Yes.  If the circumstances are right.”

Her mouth twists into an acid smile as she nods.  “And clearly that makes no difference to you.  A stag dies, a man dies- what does it matter?  You got paid.”

Something dark coils in the pit of Rumpelstiltskin’s stomach.  His brow furrows, his eyes squint.  “Yes, I did.  Just as I was paid for the thread I spun, and didn’t ask how it would be used.  Just as Collioure’s fishermen sell their catch, and don’t ask who’s eating them.”

“It’s _not_ the same,” she growls.

“It’s not so very different,” he retorts, “Though I will say this, I’ve made enough money to bring your village back from the dead.  You could be grateful for that.”

Her eyes only blaze brighter.  “ _Did_ you make enough?  Are you _very_ sure of that?”

The dark thing coils tighter.  Does she know about the three chests?  Perhaps, though certainly not what he spent it on.  If she did, he highly doubts she’d be attacking him now.  “I’ve made plenty,” he replies, voice low and taut.

“Indeed.  Selling to anyone who asked.  Tell me, have you sold your wonderful cloaks to Queen Cora?”

The witch queen who beguiled King George and took his throne on the edge of the Infinite Forest is the stuff of whispers.  They describe slaughtered villages and horrible tortures and a princess driven mad and twitching with untamed dark magic who’s unleashed on her mother’s enemies at a word.

“If I ever did it was through an intermediary,” he hedges, “Though I don’t know what she would want with my cloaks when she has the power to hide an army on her own.”

“Would you?  If you did know, would you sell to her?”

Rumpelstiltskin considers the question, and his brain suggests a scenario in which only Queen Cora had the medicine to heal black throat.  If she demanded he make cloaks for her alone in exchange, what would be his response?  “I might.”

Belle’s face goes stark white, as if he ripped off his skin to reveal a scaly beast underneath. “I see,” she breathes, “If the price is right, eh?”

“No-”

Her hand flies up. “Stop!  Your success is my success.  I said that.  Well, I don’t want it, not like this.  I _forbid_ you to make this cloak.”

The dark coiled thing snaps, and Rumpelstiltskin feels the cold mask Tsepi Chrysos slip over his face.  “Do you?” he inquires, “By what authority?  I’m not a peasant for you to command, not anymore.  I am your husband.  My trade is mine, and no one will tell me how to run it.”

Belle has gained her own mask of crystallized anger.  He barely feels human but Chrysos’ pride keeps him standing as she surveys him for a torturous moment of icy silence, then whips around and walks away.  That is when his mask drops, and he’s left to ponder how everything could go so very wrong, so very quickly.


	18. Chapter 18

Well after nightfall, Belle draws on a cloak, cringing as she imagines its cheery green pattern replaced by colors of concealment.  She leaves the castle on the sea side, slipping past homes with too many darkened windows.  The moon rides high over the Endless Ocean and her heart aches as she wonders what’s become of her dear Red.  Maurice should’ve taken Anita’s offer.  Then none of this would be happening.  Clouds swallow the moon and she hurries on to the only place in the village filled with light and life.

The Rabbit Hole has never wanted for business.  Before and after the siege, fishermen built up their courage there and returned to lament or celebrate a haul depending on their luck.  Farmers who turned up when Granny’s was full rested their weary feet after long days tending their fields.  During the siege when all villagers were needed to fend off ogre attacks, the Rabbit Hole burgeoned with idle men drowning their sorrows.  Even the black throat didn’t manage to empty the place, not quite.  There were more sorrows to drown, after all.

Tonight Belle scurries inside and has a second to regret her decision before an empty stool at the bar beckons her forward.  She climbs onto it with her hood still up, eyes fixed on the sticky wood surface before her.  When the barman approaches, she says, “Ale, please.”

“Huh?”

She coughs a little more strength into her voice, “ _Ale._   Please.”  She drops a copper on the bar.

He scoops the coin up with a grunt and lumbers off to fetch her drink.

People are staring, she knows they are, and they know she knows they are.  She sits in frozen silence until a wooden mug is plunked before her.  Then she drinks, pulling long deep gulps of bitter burning ale until she must come up for air.  Someone might chuckle and applaud at that- she continues memorizing the wood grain, doing her very best to think of nothing at all because everything else hurts.

When three-quarters of her ale is gone, and the world is a little soft and tilted, she feels a hand on her shoulder.  She turns slowly and her vision fills with a broad chest, the face above hidden by her hood.  She flicks it back with a twitch of her head, and recoils at the sudden sight of Gaston’s ruin of a face.  “Gods!  Ah, sorry.  You, uh... you surprised me.”

“What are you doing here?”

No “my lady” in the Rabbit Hole.  How discreet of him.  “I’m doing needlepoint, Gaston, what does it look like?”  She drains her mug and waves it at the barman, “Another ale, please!”

A smile spreads across her face as a second mug swiftly appears before her.  She flips another copper onto the bar and raises the mug to Gaston.  “To your health, Sir Gaston the Inept.  Heh, d’you remember that?”  Her chuckle quickly dies as sorrow infects those happy memories of the Etmes festival’s mock tourney.  She sticks her face in the mug for a long sip.

“I think you should come with me.”

“Fine, I think this stool is giving me splinters.”

Hands at her elbow and waist guide her up and onto her feet.  She focuses hard on not spilling her ale as Gaston leads her to a corner booth where another man sits.  He is small and stout with a very round nose.  “Belle, this is LeFou.  He’s been keeping an eye on Master Chrysos for me.”

“Hm, well, thanks I suppose,” Belle mutters into her drink.

“No problem,” LeFou responds, “Gaston, what is she-?”

“LeFou has been telling me we must be on high alert now,” Gaston says, “Chrysos’ foreman could return at any moment, and whatever he’s planning will spring into action.”

“What is he planning?”  Belle peers at LeFou, “Do you know?  Tell me, I command you, as the daughter of your lord and the lady of Collioure.”

The man’s eyes widen, and jump between her and Gaston, “He, uh, well...”

“Nothing good.  Nothing good at all,” Gaston intones, “We just don’t know what he’s capable of.  How far he’ll go.  You would think having his son become governor would be enough, but clearly it isn’t.”

“No, it isn’t,” Belle murmurs, again gazing into swirling suds of ale.  She can’t guess what he might do.  Because what does she really know about him?  Only what he’s told her.  Even what Baelfire’s mentioned in passing about his father might be a pleasant mask he wears for his son.  Underneath all the layers, perhaps there’s only a beast.  She tips more ale down her throat.

“We must prepare for a total emergency,” Gaston declares, “The most drastic option.  We must consider that he might not wait for the black throat to claim Lord Maurice.  He may decide to speed things up.  Usurp his seat in the confusion.”

Belle blinks slowly, dread filling her mind with dark fog.  Her head lolls toward Gaston.  “You think...  Are you saying... he’s going to _murder_ my father?”

“I don’t know, I’m just trying to think things through.  This secret job he sent his foreman on, it could be anything.  Perhaps on the Crescent Islands there’s some kind of _poison_ that mimics the last stages of black throat.”

The sound of Maurice’s pitiful retching echoes in Belle’s memory and she feels like her heart is caving in.  “No.  No, he can’t.  He can’t get away with it!” she wails, grabbing Gaston’s shirt in the fist not clutching her ale.

“I’m sorry, Belle,” he says, “We just won’t know what he’s planning until he shows his hand.  There’s no other way.”

“No other way?  No other way?!  You... you coward!”  Belle reaches down and grabs the hilt of the dagger hanging in a sheath at Gaston’s hip.  It slides free easily and she throws herself out of the booth and toward the tavern door.

“Belle, wait!” Gaston shouts, but she doesn’t slow her wobbly stalk until she can yank open the door, which is nearly ripped from her hand by a fierce wind.  A storm has blown in from the sea, wild and black and salty.  A lash of rain strikes Belle’s face, clearing some of the fog from her mind so that she can focus on the dock further down the road.  It seems a trim schooner has ridden the storm into harbor.  Lightning illuminates a very tall, very bald figure leaping from the vessel and onto the dock.  Belle tracks Peristeri as he lopes up the road past the Rabbit Hole with a leather satchel dangling from his shoulder.

It’s happening.  Whatever horrible plan has been devised between him and his master, it’s now in motion.  She tightens her grip on the dagger and bolts after Peristeri, slamming the door on Gaston’s weak protestations.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for gore. Also, fun fact, this scene was written during a thunderstorm.
> 
> Also, also, for American readers: VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE.

Rumpelstiltskin has never been happier to have his chambers face the sea side of the village.  Naturally he didn’t bother even trying to sleep after his confrontation with Belle, and watching the storm blow in not only gives him a distraction from the storm in his mind, it allows him to spot Peristeri’s arrival in a flash of lightning.  He can’t tell if this is incredibly good or incredibly bad timing, all he can do is grab his cane and start his awkward limping run to Maurice’s chambers.

He searches for a night maid as he goes, someone to fetch Girard to properly administer the medicine, but he sees no one.  His chest and his ankle burn in unique ways by the time he reaches his destination, somehow managing to beat Peristeri by a minute or two.  He’s still gulping air with his cane wobbling under his heavy lean while the healer sitting at the door asks if he’s well and his foreman races down the hall.  He thrusts a satchel forward as he skids to a halt, rivulets of rainwater pouring down his bare head and soaking into his clothes.

“How?” Rumpelstiltskin manages to croak after grabbing the satchel and holding it to his chest.

“Swallow, all of it.”

“Right, fetch Girard, go.”

Peristeri spins and bolts back the way he came.  The healer pipes up, “Master Chrysos, what is this?”

“Medicine for Lord Maurice.  Come with me.”

If anything the confusion on her face grows, and she continues to protest while following him into the governor’s chambers.  “Sir, what kind of medicine is this?  We need to be certain it won’t hurt him.  Sir!”

“You’ve been caring for Lord Maurice for a while now, yes?”  She nods, eyes wide and sad.  “Can he get much worse than he already is?”

She doesn’t seem to have a quick answer for that, so he carries on past the curtain around Maurice’s bed.  Rumpelstiltskin is glad for rain-washed air blowing in from an open window and warding off the smell of putrid flesh.  Maurice breathes in slow, weak, wet gasps.  His eyes slit open and Rumpelstiltskin knows there’s no need to explain.  Maurice has likely been counting the seconds until this moment.

Rumpelstiltskin opens the satchel and extracts a small wool packet in which a vial lies in a wad of cotton.  It’s shorter than his first finger and only half-full of a clear liquid.  He breaks off the tiny wax seal at the top, and brings it to Maurice’s open mouth-

“STOP!”

The vial nearly jolts from his hand at the screamed command accompanied by a crash of thunder.  Belle rips open the curtains, revealing her form as soaked as Peristeri, trembling from head to foot, and also radiating fury.

“Get away from him!  Get away from my father!”

“Belle, please, I’m trying to-”

That’s when a dagger appears, pointed at his throat.  “I said get away!” Belle roars, “I won’t let you hurt him!  You won’t get away with this!”

“Get away with _what?_ ” he asks desperately, “I’m- I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what I planned.  I didn’t want to get your hopes up.”  _Now we see where that brilliant line of logic got you_ , his brain unhelpfully quips.

“Get my _hopes_ up?” Belle squeaks in apparent horror, “You think I _want_ my father dead?!”

It’s Rumpelstiltskin’s turn to squeak, “Dead?!  I- no, of course not, not at all.  I’m trying to help him, and it has to be now, the medicine won’t last...”

He turns back to Maurice, but must dodge Belle’s lunge or risk getting stabbed through the cheek.

“Stay _away_ from him!” she sobs, “Papa, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I won’t let him hurt you, I won’t let anything-”

Her declaration is interrupted by Maurice snatching the vial and dumping it down his throat.  Belle lets out a choked shriek and drops the dagger, rushing forward to fall on Maurice as if  she could pull the medicine from him.

The slow, weak, wet gasps have stopped.  Maurice’s throat bulges and retracts.  He gurgles, groans, and sits up, forcing Belle to scramble backward though she stays bent with her forearms pressed hard into the bed.  More gurgling, followed by long guttural grunts and another faint moan and then by Maurice opening his mouth and spewing blood and rotten flesh and gods know what else all over his lap.

Belle falls to her knees, face a rictus of pure terror.  Rumpelstiltskin doubts he looks any better.

Maurice is motionless, bent over the gore.  It takes a moment to realize that he’s breathing.  Slow breaths, but increasingly strong and clear.  He straightens, and wipes a hand over his chin.  Below that, his neck is a thick ring of pink and white scar tissue.  He coughs- clears his throat, more accurately, gesturing toward the healer who swiftly offers a handkerchief.  Maurice cleans his face in a business-like fashion, then peers at the mess in his lap.  “Gods, that’s foul, isn’t it?” he remarks in a hoarse whisper.

The healer folds down the sheet, whisking the worst of it away, though some has seeped into Maurice’s nightshirt.  “I’ll get fresh clothes and linens,” she mutters, clearly unable to think of anything better to do.

“Yes, thank you,” Maurice says, with a few more light coughs.  He pats at his neck, and turns a sideways glance on Rumpelstiltskin.  “That’s good stuff.  Indeed.”

“Like I said, more than worth the cost.”

He nods stiffly just before Girard and Peristeri burst into the room.

“My lord,” the chief healer says, immediately coming to Maurice’s side, “I’m sorry.  I would’ve been here but we didn’t expect Master Peristeri quite so soon.  I understood the medicine would quickly lose effectiveness and so had to be administered without delay.  I... I see it arrived in good time, thank the gods.”

Girard sets to examining Maurice.  Meanwhile, Rumpelstiltskin realizes Belle has wandered to a corner of the room and curled up there, face hidden behind drawn-up knees and crossed arms.  It’s the loneliest sight he’s ever encountered, and his feet carry him to her even as he knows she wants him nowhere close.  He clenches his teeth and winces through the process of kneeling, sets his cane down and rests his palms on his thighs.

He’s very close to doing something incredibly stupid, like asking if she’s all right, when Belle’s head tips back against the wall.  She stares at nothing while tears slip down her cheeks.  “Medicine,” she whispers, “You got my father medicine.  You... you saved his life.”

“I should’ve told you.  I just... If I couldn’t get it, if it didn’t work...  I didn’t want you to think you’d get him back, only to lose him all over again.  I hope you can forgive me.”

She swallows and sniffles, keeps staring.  “The three chests.”

“Payment.  This kind of medicine is very difficult to make, and it’s got a price to match.  You need the newly grown tentacle of the prásinos ríga squid.  One lives near the harbor, but it must be taken at just the right time.”

“Prásinos ríga... green-striped...  Gaston said he killed the green-striped squid in the harbor.  Wouldn’t shut up about it, actually.”

Rumpelstiltskin’s brow furrows.  “Hm, I suppose I did hear a story or two about a Marshlands braggart who drank half the ouzo in town and had to be shipped home before he started his tenth tavern brawl.  Before my time, of course.”

“And if he... if he _had_ killed it...  No medicine.”

“Perhaps.  It certainly would’ve taken much longer to prepare.  Too long, I’d wager.”

Belle wipes the tears from her face.  She turns to fix her eyes on him.  “Gaston is a liar.  He’s been plotting against you from the beginning, and I’ve been stupid enough to go along with him.  I’m sorry.”

Rumpelstiltskin absorbs this information and her apology, and says, “I won’t say it doesn’t hurt a bit that you thought me capable of murder-”

Belle holds up a finger.  “To be fair, I am drunk right now.”

Rumpelstiltskin’s eyebrows jump.  “Ah, I see.”

“And I got drunk because you are a war profiteer.  That is not a lie.”

“That is... an oversimplification,” he counters, “But for the moment, do you believe I mean you no harm, just as you assured me?”

She draws in a breath and lets it out a long, slightly shaky sigh.  “Yes.  I believe.”

Rumpelstiltskin allows himself a small, crooked grin.  “Well, that’s a start.”


	20. Chapter 20

In the library, Bae looks across the table at Belle and wonders how she manages to sit here with him, talking about the Marshlands irrigation methods while her father is dying.  For the past few days, aside from attending their lessons, she’s been in the governor’s chambers with the chief healer Girard.  And also with Rumpelstiltskin, though Bae’s not sure why.

It’s clear that’s where she’d rather be, in the way she perches on her seat and glances at the door and loses her place in their books.  Eventually, Bae is compelled to say, “If you want to go be with Lord Maurice, it’s all right.  We can do this later.”

She blinks at him.  “Excuse me?”

“You should be with him, while you can.  I mean, you probably still need to decide what will happen... you know, _after_.  Who’ll be governor until I’m old enough.  Though, I mean, it should be you.”

Her eyebrows jump.  “You- you think that?”

“Of course.  You already know everything.  The only reason it’s me is because I’m a boy, and my father has money.”  He looks away, frowning, “I guess we can’t really change what’ll happen, but at least you could be governor before me, for a little while.  Would that be enough?”

A soft smile spreads across her face.  “If that was how things turned out, I would be very satisfied.  But I want you to know that I’m looking forward to being your chief councilor.”

Bae returns her smile.  “That’s good.  And maybe later, if I have a daughter, I’ll just make her my heir,  and we can forget the rule about only boys being the governor.  It’s dumb anyway.”

Belle lets out a laugh.  “I think you’re well on your way to being a very good governor, and a better father.”

Bae’s cheeks heat and he ducks his head at the compliment.  “Right, so, you know, if you want to stay with Lord Maurice, I think you should.  I don’t want you to... to miss out on anything.”  Bae feels panicky even trying to think about losing Rumpelstiltskin- never seeing his warm smile, never burying himself in a hug, never sharing stories about their day over supper.

Belle reaches out and lays a hand on his arm.  “Baelfire, ah...”  She glances around the library, then leans close, “I’m going to tell you something, but you must promise me you’ll keep it to yourself for now.”

Her blue eyes bore into his so all he can do is murmur, “All right.”

“My father has been cured.  He’s recovering from his illness right now.”

Bae’s mouth drops open, “Really?  That’s amazing!”

Belle doesn’t return his beaming smile.  Instead her grip tightens, holding him in place when he might have jumped from his chair in excitement.  “Yes, it is amazing.  But for now we need to keep quiet about it.”

Bae’s joy is replaced by confusion.  “Why?  People are really worried about him.  They’d want to know he’s well again.”

Guilt flashes over Belle’s face.  “I know, but...  It seems that... that there may be a- a plot against us.  Specifically you and your father.”

Bae hardly understands her words.  “A plot?”

“Someone may wish you harm, but we’re going to figure out how to expose them.  So for now, it’s to our advantage to keep my father’s condition a secret.”

“Well, I’ll help, tell me what to do!”

Now Belle smiles, “The best way for you to help is just act as though everything is normal.  We’ll take care of the problem.”

Frustration fills Bae but he manages to swallow it down and keep his face calm as they continue the lesson.  Belle thinks he can’t help, and he understands that.  She doesn’t know about Zoso.  About what Bae did to help his father.  Bae loves his father, and he loved the business they built together in the islands.  If he’s going to love Collioure as its governor should, he needs to be willing to protect it the same way.  Even if it gets him scolded later.

After the lesson, he goes on one of his little wanders through the village, idly scuffing his feet at doors and taking in the cooler air.  The recent storm seems to have blown out the summer heat, inviting a hint of autumn chill on the breeze.  Beneath his perfect illusion of a bored boy with nothing to do, Bae’s mind works feverishly to determine who is plotting against him and his family.  There aren’t many options, and in fact he doesn’t need to be half as observant as he is for the culprit to become clear.

Bae has seen the scarred knight at every public gathering since the wedding.  Lurking in corners, failing to look like he’s not planning the demise of everyone his gaze falls upon.  Bae has asked the castle maids about him, and apparently he’s a hero who saved Belle’s life during the worst ogre attack of the siege.  If Sir Gaston is a hero, Bae is a toad- that’s his humble opinion.  He knows of Gaston’s visit to the islands too, where he made such a famous brute of himself.  The man is a villain, and whatever he’s scheming, Bae vows to stop it.

The first part is simple.  The maids have told him Gaston spends most of his time at the Rabbit Hole, drinking and recounting his glorious tales of adventure for a semi-willing audience.  With a few sticks and a small blade in his pocket, Bae heads to the tavern, walking past its entrance and around the side to take a seat against the wall.

It’s a long wait, silently carving the sticks into fish as he listens to men who aren’t his quarry meander out of the tavern.  He has time to wonder if this is the odd day Gaston has spent elsewhere, and regret not bringing a cushion out with him, but as the sun sinks toward the sea, he hears a new pair of voices and footsteps.

“... Got it, an hour after sundown, sixty paces south.”

A second man sighs, “LeFou, sixty paces south would put you in the ocean.  It’s sixty paces _west_ and if you make me tell you again, I will _throw you_ sixty paces south.”

The first man chuckles nervously, “Oh, right, yeah, Gaston.  West.  Got it.”

West from _where_ Bae wants to demand, but the men are already gone.  He waits another five minutes, and heads for Granny’s inn for supper while he ruminates.  Sixty paces from where they’re meeting is in the ocean- this is where he starts.  At the end of his considerations, and with a belly full of pancakes, he has a potential destination in mind.  But before he goes there, he’ll need to make a side trip.

The mill is closing for the day, and Bae is glad for the bustle as he slips in, sharing a few smiles and greetings but otherwise not drawing much attention.  He glimpses Rumpelstiltskin at a desk in the office that still smells of new paint, and quickly ducks past as Peristeri steps out of it and leaves the mill.  Bae presses on to a certain wooden crate that is to be nailed shut and sent to King Stefan tomorrow.  He sends a short prayer of gratitude to Etmes for his good timing, then reaches in and plucks out a cloak, bundling it up as tight as he can and bolting through the mill’s back door.  He only needs it for a little while.  No one will even notice it’s gone.

At the back of the mill, he waits some more, the light dimming around him as the day ends.  It’s too dark too carve sticks, so Bae just sits, and tries to will away the nervous fluttering in his stomach.  When the shadows are thick and he just can’t wait a second longer, he throws on the cloak and sneaks out into the forest west of the castle.

It’s anxious going, stepping as lightly as possible, wondering if one of his paces counts for a third or half of Gaston’s.  It seems only minutes pass before the forest is pitch dark around him, and not long after he notices a campfire deep in the brush.  He approaches in a slow and serpentine path that circles around to put the camp between him and Collioure.  He settles in a spot close enough to hear the hum of a woman as she heats some food in a pan over her fire.

He sits in the dark with his guts knotting and reflects on how the books of adventure he’s read never mention all the waiting the hero has to do.  But eventually heavy footsteps tromp toward the camp and the woman stands up straight with her hands on her hips.

“Good, you’re here,” Gaston states.

“Lovely to see you too,” the woman retorts, “No, no, it wasn’t a problem to come on short notice, don’t even mention it.  Anyway, what’s the job?”

“Hold on, Jack.  My... associate hasn’t arrived.”

“Fine.  Sausage?”

“Pass.”

Bae holds in a sigh, disliking the fact that he shares Gaston’s irritation with LeFou’s tardiness.  It’s getting cold out.  The cloak helps, but he’ll be chilled much quicker than Gaston in his mail and leather and Jack in her traveling clothes.  He clenches his teeth to keep them from chattering.

After a little while, a plaintive voice floats over the camp.  Gaston curses and hauls himself to his feet, marching into the darkness a heart-stopping five feet from Bae’s hiding place.  He returns with a hand clamped around the back of LeFou’s neck, all but dropping the small man at a spot by the fire.  Bae recognizes him- he’s run odd jobs for the tinkers in the mill.

“Uh, hello,” LeFou greets Jack with a tiny wave.

She gives him a nod with her eyebrows raised.  She turns to Gaston.  “So, what’s the job?”

“I need you to impersonate a mill worker from the Crescent Islands.  Have you heard of Tsepi Chrysos?”

Jack hums, “The one who makes the cloaks.  Gods, how I’d like to get my hands on one of those.”

“You can have ten of them, it’ll be your payment.”

Jack holds up a finger.  “Hey now, I want details before I decide what my time is worth.  Keep talking.”

“You need to convince Lady Belle that Chrysos is a slave driver, that the people in his mills toil in torment, subjected to every kind of cruelty he can think of.  You need to sell it.  She needs to think he’s a monster, that her people are in imminent danger of becoming his loom slaves.”

Bae’s blood boils.  His father wouldn’t treat any living thing cruelly.  It was Zoso.  He was the monster.

As if reading his thoughts, Jack says, “I heard it was his partner who was the slave driver.  Does the lady know that?”

“She might.  In that case, you turn it into a real sob story.  Say Zoso was protecting you, but Chrysos forced him out, pinned every evil deed on him, and threatened the workers into silence.”

Jack whistles, “Dark.  I’m almost weeping already.”

“Exactly.  And when you think you have her, tell her how Chrysos would drag you into his office and have his way w-”

“Hang on.”

“What?”

“I’m not saying that.”

“Why not?  I told you every kind of cruelty.”

“Look, believe it or not, Gaston, I do have some limits.  Anyway, you’re asking for quite a complex performance here.  Why are you doing all this?”

“Why?  Because I am the lord of Collioure.  _That’s_ why.”

“Oh, you’re the lord of Collioure?  Could’ve fooled me.”

“Everyone is fooled!” Gaston snarls, “Belle owes me her _life_.  I was _ruined_ protecting her.  And what have I gotten in return?  A pat on the head and a few coins every week?  It’s an insult.  Every minute I’ve been in this damned village is an insult to my station and my honor.  I am of noble blood and I’ve more than proven my worth, but who was chosen as Maurice’s heir?  Some whelp of a crippled spinner who lucked into a chest of gold.  It’s sickening.  I’m going to set things right.  And you will help me.  And so will _you_.”

He jabs a finger at LeFou, who lets out a squeak and a cough.  “Right, so, uh, what should I do?”

“We got Belle to a point where she was ready to kill Chrysos once.  If Jack plays her role correctly, we can do it again.  And when I send Belle off to do the deed, you’ll go and fetch his brat.  You’ll bring him to me.”

“Uh, a-and then what?”

A nasty smile spreads across Gaston’s face.  “You know, children run away all the time when they’re scared.  It’s just tragic that the body was never found.”

LeFou lets out a choked laugh.  “Yeah.  I see.  Tragic.”

In his hiding place, Bae has shrunk as small as he can.  Shivers roll through him not only because of the dropping temperature.  It’s just now occurring to him how bad it might be if he is discovered, even as he knows he can’t stay much longer.  His legs are already aching, if they cramp up he’ll be trapped.  He takes a breath, and rises by inches.

“Just think on the future, LeFou.  Once I’ve taken my rightful place, you’ll take yours as well.  As long as you don’t disappoint me.”

“Uh huh.  Got it.”

As soon as he can, Bae starts a slow creep around Jack’s camp in the direction of Collioure.  The conspirators haggle over Jack’s payment while Bae steps around any breakable twigs.  He almost avoids all of them.

The snap seems to echo through the whole forest.

“What was that?” Gaston demands.  Bae can almost feel three pairs of eyes on his cloaked back.  He doesn’t breathe.  He puts his faith in his father’s skill.

“Hm, I don’t see anything,” Jack replies, “Probably a badger or something.  Now, are you certain there are ten cloaks?”

Bae keeps moving at a steady pace as the voices and firelight fade behind him and he is welcomed into the refuge of darkness.  He makes it to the mill and slips inside the back door.  Once at the crate, he removes the cloak and folds it carefully, adding a kiss to the fabric that served him well before placing it with the others.  Then he spins around and runs for the castle, heart pounding against his ribs.


	21. Chapter 21

“It doesn’t hurt too badly, does it?” Belle asks, glancing over the heavy scars on Maurice’s neck as she holds a bowl of broth under his chin.

Maurice ladles a spoonful into his mouth and swallows before answering, “It’s rather stiff, but I’d say that’s the worst of it.  Well, that and...”  His voice is still barely stronger than a rasp.  Girard isn’t sure how much it will improve over time, if at all.

“Keep breathing this good air, we’ll see what it does,” Belle says, nodding to the open window they sit by.  Gulls swoop past on this pale, bright day.  Some gauzy clouds float over the sea and Belle thinks the view has never looked more beautiful, with her father here to see it.

“Bugger breathing the air, I want to walk in it.  I want to see our village again.”

“I know.  And you will, very soon.  Once it’s safe.”

“Which means it is currently unsafe.”  He reaches up to loosely grasp her wrist, “Belle, you must take care.  I’ve not come back from the dead just to lose you.”

“You won’t.  I swear it.”

“Right.  You and Rumpel will work together.  Get this snake out of our midst.”

“Yes.”

Maurice sighs, gazing off with a melancholy look.  “I did believe Gaston was a man of honor once.  Arrogant of course, but not to the point of being poisoned by it.  He did serve this village well in the siege.”

“And he expected compensation, apparently.  And will hurt others to get what he thinks he’s owed.”  The facts haven’t changed.  Belle would be dead if not for Gaston.  Her own sense of honor still demands that she be grateful- she must continually fight to deny it, to declare at least internally that he no longer deserves gratitude, that he is entitled to nothing Belle is unwilling to give.

She suspects there is a similar struggle in Maurice.  “His father will make a fuss.”

“That’s not our fault.”

“True enough.”

Once the broth is finished, Belle helps Maurice back to his bed, pressing a kiss to his brow before taking her leave.  She walks carefully through the halls of the castle, waiting for the moment Gaston pops out with his urgent development he simply _must_ tell her about.  While part of her still begs not to turn on the man who saved her life, another part of her is disgusted that she ever believed his pretense of concern for her and Collioure.  Perhaps most embarrassing of all is that it never crossed her mind to tell Gaston to take his suspicions to Brevet, or go to the captain of the guard herself until Baelfire told them what he learned.  She knows it’ll be some time before she fully understands how she let herself be led so far astray.

The day passes quietly, and darkness falls with Belle still waiting.  She wonders if she should change out of her day clothes.  That would be the normal thing to do, but the thought of facing what’s to come in her nightdress feels like a little too much to bear.  She reclines on her bed, pretending to be so lost in a book she forgot to change, just in case Gaston asks.

Finally, the sound of a knock on the door ricochets around her chambers.  Belle’s heart jumps to her throat, and she wills herself to calm before going to answer.

There stands the man of the hour, looking so very, truly, deeply worried.  Belle wants to spit in his remaining eye.  “My lady, you must come urgently.”

“Sir Gaston, it’s well after dark.  Can’t this wait until morning?”

She goes so far as to inch the door shut, only for Gaston to step into the frame and loom over her while he growls, “If you have a single care for the people of this village, you will come with me now.”

Of course he would immediately threaten those she is duty-bound to protect.  How does he see them, she wonders.  Just more pawns to get what he wants?  It fills her with dread to think what kind of governor he would have been, and she uses it to quail and murmur, “A-all right, Sir Gaston, I will come.”

“Good.”  A huge hand clamps on her wrist and then she is being marched through the halls.  She trots to keep up and continually reminds herself that he won’t want to harm her.  He needs her to do his dirty work.

He takes her out of the castle through the unguarded vegetable garden and over to one of the abandoned homes nearby.  She feels an automatic swell of revulsion and fear as they pass the white X slashed on the door.  They delve into the house whose empty, white-washed rooms are like bare bones.  Light flickers in one- they enter and Belle sees LeFou poking at a fire in a small hearth while a thin woman dressed in rags stands close, her arms wrapped tight around her midsection.

Gaston gestures to the woman and says, “Lady Belle, allow me to introduce you to Alcina, of the Crescent Islands.”

 _Known as Jack to her friends and co-conspirators_ , Belle inwardly quips.  Outwardly, she bobs and greets Jack, “Chárika gia ti gnorimía, Alcina.”

To her credit, Jack doesn’t waver, replying in a serviceable accent, “Please, I try to learn your tongue.  I escape the islands, I speak as you.”

“Very well.  Is there something you need to tell me?”

A mix of sorrow, fear, and reluctance fills Jack’s face as she fidgets with a frayed sleeve.  “Please, Alcina,” Gaston beseeches her, “The truth must be known.”

“In the islands...” Jack begins almost too quietly to hear, “Money is all importance.  Small people, like me, we are not thought of.  We are used.  Chrysos, he uses us.  He hurts us in his mill.  I escape, but others did not.  Too broken.”

Belle’s gaze jumps from Jack to Gaston to LeFou and back.  “I was told Zoso treated the mill workers poorly.  Chrysos sent him away.”

“No!” Jack cries, rushing forward to grab Belle’s hands and lock eyes with her.  “Zoso, he tries to protect us.  He is not to blame.  But Chrysos forces him away, spreads word that he is wicked.  And he says, if we speak the truth, we suffer more.  Please believe me!  Protect these people here!  Do not be Chrysos’ slaves!”

Jack collapses into Belle’s arms, bawling like a child.  Belle pats her back, turning her face away from Gaston and LeFou as she tries to figure out the correct reaction to these theatrics.

“You see, my lady?” Gaston intones, “He covered his tracks well, but now we know what Chrysos really is.  He must be stopped, for the sake of our people.  Once the mill is operating, there will be no hope.”

“Please, _please_ ,” Jack blubbers, “Protect them.  Save them.  Stop him.”

“We can tell Brevet,” Gaston continues, “Only... he may not believe us.  By the time we convince him, it could be too late.  Chrysos must already have the council under his thumb.  We are the only people who know the truth.”

“Please stop him,” Jack whispers in Belle’s ear, “Don’t let him hurt your people.”

“He can’t get away with this!” Gaston shouts, slamming an impotent fist into the wall.  “My lady, I’m sorry, I don’t know what to do.  There’s nothing we _can_ do.  It’s too late.  He’s won.”

Jack wails like she’s been stabbed, “No!  No more suffering!  Not again!  Gods, _please!_ ”

Belle slowly disentangles herself from Jack’s clinging arms.  She keeps her gaze lowered, her face a rigid mask.  “Something will be done, I promise you,” she mutters.

“My lady, hold on, we shouldn’t be hasty,” Gaston says, stepping close to lay a hand on Belle’s shoulder.  She slaps it off and bolts from the room, and doesn’t stop until she’s re-entered the castle.  Then she allows herself to walk at a brisk pace to Rumpelstiltskin and Baelfire’s chambers.  A castle guard standing watch steps aside so she can knock on the door.

It swings open to reveal Rumpelstiltskin.  Belle holds her hands up in a loose circle at neck height and wags them back and forth while making choking sounds with her tongue stuck out.

A corner of his mouth curves up and he steps back.  “Anyway, do come in.”

Baelfire sits with Brevet inside.  He perks up when he spots Belle and asks, “Was she there, that Jack lady?”

“Yes, and she told me her tale of degradation, just as you said.”  She turns to Rumpelstiltskin, “Made you seem like an absolute demon.  She really wants those cloaks.”

“Well she’ll not be getting them.”  His gaze drops for a moment before he blows out a gusty sigh and says, “Look, we have Bae’s account, now we have yours.  Isn’t that enough?  Is it really- _necessary_ to put yourself in danger again?”

Brevet answers him, “It will be best if we catch them in the act.  He means to send LeFou after Baelfire when Belle returns.  If LeFou comes, we’ll have solid proof of their conspiracy.”

“LeFou will tell us everything,” Belle adds, “Without Gaston there to pressure him, he’ll choose to protect himself, I know it.  Jack might turn on Gaston too if we can get hold of her.”

“I’ll have guards follow you back to the house,” Brevet says, “They’ll be waiting outside.”

“See, Rumpel?” Belle says, “I’ll be safe.”

He nods, while looking totally unconvinced.

“All right, so, I’ll go back, make Gaston think Rumpel is dead, he’ll send LeFou here for the guard to scoop up, then you’ll come get him and Jack, correct?”

“That’s the plan, my lady,” Brevet replies.

“Can I help?” Baelfire asks.

Rumpelstiltskin rounds on him, “You’ve helped more than enough.  I still cannot believe you did something so dangerous.”

“And brave,” Belle can’t help adding.

Rumpelstiltskin gives her an aggrieved look, “Belle, we can’t have him thinking following dangerous people into the forest at night is acceptable behavior.”

“Sorry, you’re right,” she says in a mollifying tone, “Baelfire, no more following dangerous people into the forest at night.  It’s not what governors do.”

“Indeed,” Brevet interjects sternly, “Governors and governors’ heirs and their stepmothers go to the captain of the guard when they suspect there are dangerous people in the forest at night.”

“Very true!  I think we’ve all learned a valuable lesson,” Belle declares, “Now, I’d say it’s been long enough for me to have murdered my husband.  I’ll just go and tell the dangerous people what I’ve done, eh?”

After telling Brevet where Gaston’s hideout is, she steps into the hall and he calls the guard into the room.  Belle pauses and turns back when she hears Rumpelstiltskin emerge, awkwardly excusing himself around the guard.  “Belle, hey, wait!”

“What is it?”

“I just... I wanted to say...  I made the cloaks and I didn’t think how they’d be used because I knew the money they’d bring in would keep Bae and me safe.”

Belle gazes at him, wondering why men choose such odd moments to let out their emotions.  “I see.”

Her words don’t seem to calm him much.  “You don’t know- you...  Before the Etmes festival, had you ever been inside a peasant’s hovel?  Have you been in one since?  I mean down by the farmers’ fields where it smells of manure and the floor gets soggy in the rainy season.  And before that, losing our village to the ogres in the Frontlands...  I did what it took to get out of that life for good and I don’t regret it.”  His firm look wavers and he mutters, “Well, I didn’t regret it until Bae took a cloak and tagged after a group of traitors in the dark.”

Belle moves a few steps closer, reaches out to catch Rumpelstiltskin’s free hand.  “Yes, and now you’re out.  And do you know what?”  She waits for him to meet her earnest gaze.  “You’re never going back.  I won’t allow it.  I will _never_ lose you again.”

He stares at her, his eyes gone deep and dark in that certain way that makes Belle feel lost in warmth and safety.  “Gods, I...  I missed you.  I missed you so much.”

Belle might guess her heart is breaking, if it didn’t feel so good.  She’s finally found him.  Her Rumpel.  Her husband.  It seems the only thing to do is tug on his hand until the distance closes between them and their lips meet for the first time in five long years.  His hand breaks from hers, but only so it can bury itself in her hair and keep her close.  Belle twines her arms around his shoulders and parts her lips to smile, and then to admit the brush of a soft tongue.  Heat rolls through her and the only thing she wants is to stay right here kissing Rumpelstiltskin, but sadly there is one last unpleasant chore she must do.

She separates their mouths, and delights in his tiny noise of disappointment.  “I missed you too,” she sighs, “But hey, there’ll be time for that.  There’ll be time for everything.  I just need to clean up my mess with Gaston first.”

His hand slowly slips from her hair, leaving a trail of warmth down her neck.  She bites her tingling lip as she steps back, eyes still locked with his.  Later.  There will be time later.  After Gaston is dealt with.  She spins on her heel and runs through the castle, then makes her way back to the abandoned house.  It looms even larger than when Gaston was dragging her through it, and she scurries toward the lone fire’s glow.

Once inside, she doesn’t stop until she reaches a corner that she sinks down in, body curled up tight, head pressed to the wall.

“My lady,” Gaston says, “My lady, what happened?”

Jack, now radiating sisterly concern, crouches down by her and lays a hand on her back.  Belle flinches and hunches her shoulders.  “Is it safe now, my lady?”

Belle squeezes her eyes shut and draws in a shuddering breath.  She expels two tiny words from her mouth with the least amount of air, “It’s done.”

Jack shoots to her feet and strides away.  “She says, it is done.”

“I see.  LeFou, go.”

“Uh, sure.”  Belle listens to him scamper off to bring the entire plot crashing down on Gaston’s head.  All she has to do now is wait.

“I go.  I return soon,” Jack says, and leaves as well, likely to get nabbed by the captain’s guard outside.  Belle would be happy about that, except now she is left alone with Gaston.  And it occurs to her to wonder if perhaps his plan isn’t to turn her over to Brevet for killing Rumpelstiltskin.  Perhaps he means to wipe out the whole house, and present himself as an alternative to chaos.

Her trembling is not false as Gaston saunters closer.  “You say it’s done, but how?  What did you do?  Whatever it was, I’ll bet it was quite a surprise to Chrysos.  I’m sure he didn’t know you had it in you.  I didn’t, not before that night in the Rabbit Hole.  I didn’t know you had that fire in you.”

Fingers drift over her hair and she jumps to her feet and darts to the opposite corner of the room in the next instant.  Gaston simply grins, and follows.  Now Belle wonders if he isn’t planning to kill her, but do something even worse.

“Calm yourself, my lady, I just asked a simple question.  What did you do to him?”

She fixes a wild-eyed stare on the floor and mutters, “I- we fought, I ran, he chased, there were stairs.  He fell.”

“Ah, so it was an accident?”

She nods in sharp jerks of her head.

“Are you certain?  Is it at all possible that you pushed him?  Think hard now.”

Gods damn him.  Belle imagines if this was all real, would she truly fall for his manipulation?  She likes to think it was mostly ale and pure terror for her father’s life that had her running through a storm and brandishing a dagger at Rumpelstiltskin.  Surely she would’ve taken “Alcina’s” story to Brevet if she actually believed it.  She can’t dwell on hypotheticals, she decides.  She needs to deal with the dangers facing her right now.

“I- I didn’t push.  I didn’t.”

“Very well.  But maybe he reached?  Maybe he grabbed and you pulled away, and he was off-balance, and there the stairs were...”

Her mind paints the scene against her will and her stomach churns.  She curls herself tight into the corner.  “I didn’t.  It was an accident.”

“I’m sure, I’m sure,” he croons, “We’ll explain everything.  It will all be fine.  You’ve done nothing wrong, my lady, even if you did push him down the stairs.  He had it coming.  Remember that.”

Suddenly his hands are on her shoulders, drawing her from the corner, turning her so her cheek hits his chest.  His arms band around her and his chin rests on the top of her head, pinning her from all directions.

“Poor dear little lady.  You’re clearly overwrought, as any woman would be.  All of this unpleasantness must have taken a toll.  You can’t be held responsible if you don’t remember what you did.  It was Chrysos’ fault.  He drove you to this.  It was him or you.  You must remember that.”

“Him or me,” Belle mutters.   _How much fucking longer is this going to take?!_

“That’s it.  Exactly.  It’s not your fault at all.  You don’t have to worry about anything, my lady.  I’ll protect you, just like I always have.  You remember that much, don’t you?  In the library?  You remember how I saved your life?”

His grip is tightening.  Slow, so as not to spook her.  “You saved me.”

“Yes.  I saved your life.  Some might say your life belongs to me.  Some might say... I should do whatever I want with it.”

Belle’s foot rises, ready to smash down onto his with as much strength as she can muster.  Either that or drive her knee up into his balls.  She can’t quite decide.  He might be too tall for the latter, unfortunately.  “Gaston... please...”

“Ah, there it is!  At last, a little humility from the peerless Lady Belle.  Finally you realize that you were never so high and mighty.  Not that it hasn’t been amusing to watch you fool yourself.  But it’s really past time that you understood your place.  In fact, we should take care of that now-”

Many things happen at once.  Gaston’s hands clamp on her arms, she slams her foot down, and the door to the house opens, followed quickly by the sound of heavy footsteps.  Brevet storms into the room to see Gaston bent almost double and holding Belle with one hand at arm’s length.

“Captain Brevet!” he cries, spine trying to curve straight even as he grimaces, “Good, y-you’re here.  Lady Belle, she came to me, she was raving, I think she might have killed... Master... Chrysos...”

Rumpelstiltskin steps forward smoothly.  “I’m afraid that’s not entirely accurate, dearie.  Now unhand my wife.”

Belle shrugs off Gaston’s weak grip and comes to Rumpelstiltskin’s side, tucking herself close with an arm around his waist and her cheek against his shoulder.

He gently drapes an arm over her back.  “Are you all right?”

“I will be.”

Brevet steps forward.  “Sir Gaston, you need to come with me now.  I strongly suggest you don’t cause trouble.  It won’t do you any good.”

Gaston’s eye darts from Brevet to Belle to Rumpelstiltskin to the assembled guards in the hall.  His face shines with sweat.  “This... there’s been a mistake.  I assure you, captain, whatever’s been said, there’s no truth in it.”

“Your statement will be taken.  Now, will you come, or must you be subdued first?”

He considers long enough for Brevet to cast a nod at the guards, who march forward to grab his arms.  “This isn’t over!” he shrieks as they lead him out of the room, “I am the lord of Collioure!  You’ll see!  You’ll all see!”

Belle closes her eyes, leans into Rumpelstiltskin.  Allows herself to breathe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chárika gia ti gnorimía = Nice to meet you


	22. Chapter 22

Now that the mill has been built, staffed, and fully prepared, the work has finally begun.  Rumpelstiltskin has been very pleased with his Collioure hires, who have taken to the looms with enthusiasm and dedication.  They’ve learned well and quickly from their Crescent Islands counterparts despite the language obstacle.  In just a few weeks the inventory has been stocked with plenty of raw fabric and spools of thread.  However, even if none of these things were true, the mill would be closed on this particular autumn day.  And it always will be.  Praise Etmes.

While the looms stand silent and still Rumpelstiltskin works through a new batch of orders in his office.  He’ll join the festival soon, but he means to take advantage of the mill’s rare quietude to process the endless stream of paperwork that represents his business.

He turns another piece of parchment, and flinches at a faint sound from the mill floor, like the rattle of dropped coins if he had to guess.  _It’s nothing_ , he tells himself as he bends over his work again, though one ear remains pricked.  And again, another sound- a shuffled footstep?  Rumpelstiltskin frowns and peers through the open office door.

“Bae?” he calls, and gets no response.  Naturally, because there’s no one here but him.  Of course.  Just him.  Certainly not a power-hungry knight out for revenge.  Brevet himself and a brace of soldiers escorted Gaston to the king’s court for trial last week.  Surely nothing went wrong on the way.  Definitely not.  Absolutely not.

Another sound has Rumpelstiltskin jumping to his feet.  Everything he can see through the office door remains perfectly still, but he can’t quite stop himself from grabbing his cane and stalking out onto the mill floor.  He goes to the center of the space and turns a couple of circles and sees nothing whatsoever out of the ordinary.

He’s almost through one last rotation when he hears, “Rumpel?”

He reels and nearly trips over his cane before he’s able to straighten and focus on the entrance to the mill, where Belle leans against the frame with a curious smirk.  An amber shawl made of Collioure fabric drapes over her slim arms.  “Y-yes, hey, hello,” he stammers around his heating cheeks and fluttering pulse.

Belle raises an eyebrow as she straightens.  “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“Oh, is it time?”

“We decided on the court of judgment, yes?  Or would you prefer to wait for the feast?”

A smile spreads across Rumpelstiltskin’s face as he steps forward to catch Belle’s hand.  “I don’t think I can wait a moment longer.”

Belle’s responding smile warms him to his soul, and any thought of odd noises on the mill floor fades from his mind as she leads him into the bright, brisk day.  Collioure is still healing from its wounds, but the people have put forth their best effort to make the Etmes festival all it can be.  There are the customary carved gourds and boughs of fiery leaves decorating every occupied home.  Rumpelstiltskin’s memory is led by the nose as he smells autumn spices in the pies and pastries baked and carried to the town square, where all of the villagers have gathered for their Etmes lord’s court of judgment.

Currently a woman declares, “My lord, my sister won’t tell me how she gets her rose bushes to grow taller than mine!”

The Etmes lord considers this, running a hand over his bald head.  He then delivers a string of words in his native tongue so rapidly Rumpelstiltskin can’t begin to guess at a translation.

When he finishes, the woman curtseys deeply.  “Thank you ever so much, my most learned lord.”

Peristeri waves a gracious hand to the applause and laughter of the crowd.  From where he stands at his lord’s side, Bae’s face lights up with a grin when spots his father and stepmother.  “Ah ha!  My Lord Peristeri, two villagers have come with a request!”

Rumpelstiltskin and Belle move through the crowd toward Peristeri’s throne.  As they go, circlets of red and gold leaves are placed on their heads and a third is pressed into Belle’s free hand.

Once they have taken the woman’s place before the throne, Rumpelstiltskin says, “My lord, your loyal servant is correct.  We come with a most urgent request.”

Switching to the language of Collioure, Peristeri replies, “What is your request, spinner?”

“My wife and I wish to be divorced,” Rumpelstiltskin proclaims, “We simply cannot stand to be married to one another for a single day more.  We beseech you, kind lord, to use your power to sever our attachment immediately and forever.”

Peristeri purses his lips, and slowly nods before rising from his throne and coming to stand before Rumpelstiltskin and Belle, who lifts the circlet of leaves for both men to hold with her.

“In the exalted name of Etmes,” Peristeri announces, “we end the marriage of this one Belle and this one Rumpelstiltskin.  We request of him that their hearts be full of hatred for each other and their paths never cross again.  Rumpelstiltskin?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Do you vow to malign and despise Belle and call her ‘enemy’ until your soul rests in Ulthar’s care?”

Rumpelstiltskin exchanges a glowing beam with Belle.  “Yes, I vow it.”

“And Belle, do you vow to malign and despise Rumpelstiltskin and call him ‘enemy’ until your soul rests in Ulthar’s care?”

Belle’s smile only grows.  “I vow it, with all my heart.”

“With the exchange of vows, I now present the bitterest foes in all of Collioure, Belle and Rumpelstiltskin!”

A roar of joy bursts from the crowd, and neither Belle, Rumpelstiltskin, Peristeri, or Bae can hold in their laughter.  Rumpelstiltskin releases Belle’s hand so he can wrap his arm around her and pull her close.  Her arms loop snugly around his middle and he buries his face in her hair.  It’s not long before Bae ducks under his father’s right arm and nestles against him.  Rumpelstiltskin squeezes him tight, and relishes the moment of having his family gathered around him.  Belle pulls back, but only far enough to reveal Maurice standing close with a hand resting on her shoulder.

“Papa!” she cries, and releases Rumpelstiltskin to throw her arms around him, “Oh, I didn’t know you would come!”

“And miss my only daughter’s divorce?  Etmes forbid it,” Maurice responds, eyes twinkling as his gaze moves to Rumpelstiltskin.

“Thank you very much for coming, my good sir,” he says, “It wouldn’t have been right without you.  But you’ll not strain yourself, eh?”

Maurice holds up a finger, “Ah-ah, only my Lord Peristeri can command me back to bed.”

“Actually,” Girard pipes up from nearby, “I believe my authority exceeds his, if he will forgive my impertinence.”

Peristeri again waves a hand.  “It is my wish that you do not strain yourself.”

Maurice bows, “Understood, my lord.”

The crowd parts to admit Reynaud with the harvest bounty to be anointed and sacrificed to Etmes.  Rumpelstiltskin watches the quiet ritual with Bae held close, his gaze frequently wandering to his sworn enemy, and hers to him.  He reflects on how hideous she is, especially when she bites her full, pink lip and bats those thick eyelashes at him.  Utterly repugnant.  Thank Etmes they are no longer married.

At the end of the ritual, food from the villagers and from the castle is placed on long tables and the feast begins.  Music and dancing soon follow.  For this Etmes day, Belle and Rumpelstiltskin create a new dance, if clinging to each other while swaying ever so slightly to the beat and stealing kisses can be called such.

Fires are lit in braziers to keep the celebration going as night falls.  Belle gives her father a kiss on the cheek and Rumpelstiltskin gives him a hug before he retires for the night under Girard’s watchful eye.  Bae also heads for his chambers not long after with a hug and kiss from his parents.  And soon, Belle catches Rumpelstiltskin’s free hand in both of hers, and draws him away from the festival with bright eyes, flushed cheeks, and a shy smile.

Once upon a time, when Belle was leading him through the castle to escape Gaston’s first attack, it crossed Rumpelstiltskin’s mind that she might hide him in her chambers.  Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine that one day they would stroll there together arm-in-arm, with Belle’s head resting on his shoulder and a hot thrum of anticipation pulsing through his veins.

Once inside, Belle slips free and removes her shawl, folding it and placing it inside a dresser drawer.  She pauses and lets out a surprised gasp.

“What is it?”

She reaches into the drawer and extracts two circlets that should be dried out twigs falling to pieces.  Instead, their leaves are full and deep green, and each is heavy with yellow blossoms blown wide.

“What-?  Are those...?”

“From our wedding, yes.”

Rumpelstiltskin steps closer, runs his thumb over a velvety petal as if it might dissolve into mist.  “They’ve been in there all this time?  How is that possible?”

“Well, if I had to guess, I’d say true love.”

“Oh.”

Belle turns to him, her face filled with a kind of helpless joy.  “Was there ever a doubt in your mind?”

And beneath all his layers of worry and self-delusion and fear, Rumpelstiltskin knows the answer to her question.  He’s known it since the moment he watched her descend the castle staircase in a golden gown and greet him with a smile like sunshine. “No.”

There’s that smile.  More beautiful than ever.  And now he has the unparalleled privilege of dipping his head and kissing it, drinking in his true love’s giggle and feeling her arms gather him close.  His cane falls away somewhere as he bands his own arms around Belle and tilts his head to find an even more perfect experience of her warm lips.  Unfortunately his quest is interrupted by their leaf circlets catching on each other.  He leans away with a chuckle that fades when Belle tilts her head forward, a heated gaze fixed on him.

Right.  Yes.  He remembers what she told him.  What he’s supposed to do.  He swallows against a suddenly dry throat, then reaches up to remove her circlet.  His heart thumps hard as Belle does the same for him.  Then he’s caught in the heat of her eyes, pinned like a prey animal and overjoyed to be so.  No one has looked at him like that, not even Milah in the early days.

Belle picks up his hand and sets it on the smooth pale skin below the hollow of her throat, then draws it down to the lacing of her bodice.  She leaves it there and goes to work herself on the buttons of Rumpelstiltskin’s coat after tossing both circlets onto the dresser.  He watches the tips of his fingers hook and dip into the top of her bodice, just to feel an inch of the soft warmth of her breasts and her tiny gasp that he can’t help capturing in another kiss.

“Don’t distract me,” she breathes against his lips, “I’ve been waiting a long time for this.”

He swallows again.  “You have?”

“Yes.  Five years exactly now.  Of course I’ve had my imaginings to keep me company, but I’m more than ready for the real thing.”

Rumpelstiltskin’s cheeks burn, and he’s compelled to mutter, “Your imaginings are likely better.”  She makes him feel like a young man, but the instant she gets his clothes off reality will cruelly assert itself.  He must do what he can to prepare her.

However, she simply shakes her head.  “This is better than missing you,” she asserts, “Did you have imaginings, when we were apart?”

 _Only every night_ , he barely manages not to say.  It’s probably not true anyway.  Perhaps every third night.  “Of course I did.  You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

She smiles, but he can tell it’s not the right thing to say.  Presumably because she’s been called beautiful all her life.  He digs for a deeper truth.

“You’re also the kindest.  The most curious.  And the bravest, through ogres and plague and- and thinking you might have been tricked into marrying some kind of vicious tyrant.”  Belle rolls her eyes with an embarrassed grimace but Rumpelstiltskin carries on, “You stayed strong despite everything.  I can’t imagine how, but you did.”

“You did too,” she counters, “Ogres drove you from your home, and you’ve faced countless other difficulties I never did.  And through it all you’ve raised a wonderful son.  Your love for Baelfire is beautiful to see.  Your life could have made you hard, but instead you... you’re full of love.  I’m so lucky to’ve found you.  Praise Etmes that I get to keep you.”

They’re both trembling and damp-eyed as they reach for each other, self-conscious worries discarded as they hurry to erase any distance between them.  Rumpelstiltskin’s coat quickly falls away and Belle’s bodice opens beneath his nimble fingers.

“Come- come with me,” Belle gasps, drawing Rumpelstiltskin to her bed.

He regrets letting go of his cane, but she doesn’t seem to mind his pained limping.  And then he forgets he even has a limp, as Belle toes off her shoes and tips back on the mattress, bringing him right along with her.  Then he’s very busy avoiding crushing her while reveling in the feel of her soft curves.

“Are you all right?” he hears her ask.

“Am I-?  Aye, I’m- fine.  Are you?”

Belle lets out a laugh, “So far, so good.  Come here.”

Her hand curls around the back of his head, and he sinks into another slow kiss.  Meanwhile, the sudden knowledge strikes his brain that Belle probably has more experience in this area than he does.  More recent, at least.  He hasn’t touched a woman since the last pathetic attempt with Milah between Bae’s birth and her departure.  Of course, he’s nothing like Red, but it fills him with relief to know Belle will have some insight into what she wants.  Assuming they got this far, which creates images in his mind that are... best left for another time.

“Rumpel, lift your arms.”

While he’s been lost in his head, Belle has done nearly all the work of getting his shirt off.  “Sorry,” he mumbles and swiftly strips off the garment.

“There, much better,” Belle sighs, “Now, if you’d please...”

She pulls a tie on her skirts and raises a brow, inviting Rumpelstiltskin to undo the rest.  He grins as he takes to the task, pulling one by one until she’s free of all but her last layer.  He decides to savor this by bringing his mouth to her neck to leave a row of soft kisses along its graceful length.  He delights in her low moan and the way she arches into his touch and runs her hands up and down his arms.  His own hand wanders over her body, squeezing her hip, waist, shoulder, breast.

“ _Yes_.”  Belle holds his hand to her while her thighs flex at his hips.  He groans as he notices just how tight his trousers have become.  It’s far too early, but perhaps she wouldn’t mind- if he could just...

Belle’s hands are already at his laces and he pours his gratitude into a kiss over her heart.

“Rumpel, I... I don’t want to wait anymore.”

His head jerks up from her chest.  “You- uh, are you sure?  I’ll do whatever you like, Belle.  I just want to please you.”

“Do you?  Promise?”

“Yes, of course, sweetheart, I promise.”

“Good.  Then make love with me.  Please.”  She squirms out of her shift and stockings while Rumpelstiltskin can only watch in frozen wonder.  Every inch of her is utterly perfect, and yet for some reason she still asks, “Is this what you want?”

The only appropriate response he can think of is to immediately roll off of her, and set to work unlacing his boots and peeling off his trousers, all while ignoring his cock bobbing in the middle of his field of vision.  This becomes much more difficult when a dainty left hand encircles it in a gentle grip.  “Gods, Belle!” he chokes out, his hand flying back to support himself as his hips surge forward.  He ends up grasping Belle’s thigh while she tentatively strokes him.

Her right arm curls around his shoulder as she leans in to murmur at his ear, “You know I... spent my time with Red, but there’s never been a man before.  But I do want you.  So much.  Here.”

She lets go of his cock and he nearly whimpers, and then truly does whimper as she uses that hand to move his from her thigh to her hot, slick folds.  Belle’s hand returns to his cock, which grows harder with every fascinated caress he gives her.  She hums and rocks against his questing fingers, he grunts and bucks against her palm.  His free hand joins hers and tightens her grip, and his head falls back gape-mouthed at the sweet friction that sends pleasure rolling through his body.

“Rumpel,” Belle sighs, “ _Oh_... Now?  Please?”

If it’s going to happen at all, it has to happen now, before Rumpelstiltskin loses himself to pleasure entirely.  It’s a good thing he’s just managed to kick off his remaining trouser leg.  He turns, slides his hand into Belle’s hair, and seals his mouth over hers as he bears her down on the mattress.  Her legs hook around his hips and her hands latch onto his backside, directing him in no uncertain terms to press his cock into her channel.

He does his best to go slow while every instinct screams to plunge as deep as he can.  The heat of her has struck a blaze inside him.  He’s almost afraid there will be nothing left once it consumes him, but he can’t keep from stoking it with slow and steady thrusts.  “Is... is it good?” he manages to mutter.

“Mmhm,” Belle responds as she cranes up to kiss any part of him she can reach.  He returns the favor, though privately mourns that her breasts are too far away.  Next time, he supposes.  They have their whole lives to get this right.

With that thought the blaze in him roars and he pulls Belle’s leg up to change the angle.  She cries out and digs her nails into his skin, adding the exact amount of pain to set off a white burst in his brain that has him gasping and his hips jerking as his come rushes out in spurts.

Seconds or days later he manages to lift his heavy head.  “Belle, sorry, isst’ too much?  I d’nna mean to...”

 “Shh, just- here, please.”  Again she directs his hand between her legs to stroke the hard knot of nerves there until she keens and writhes and clenches around him, then sags back onto the bed with a beautiful sigh.

Rumpelstiltskin manages to shift onto his side, though he keeps his head pillowed on Belle’s chest.  She wraps her arms around him, thumb stroking his temple.  He soon succumbs to the sweetest rest.

Later, he’ll feel a line of heat across his back.  “It’s dawn.  The festival’s over,” Belle will whisper, “Good morning, my husband.”

And he’ll smile, and press a kiss to the soft skin beneath his lips.  “Good morning, my wife.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
